In English

Handbell Ensemble Dolce has operated in Kallavesi Lutheran Church in Kuopio since fall 1999 under the direction of Seppo Kirkinen and has 14 musicians with ages from 15 to 21 years old. It is currently not possible to study handbells in Finland so Seppo Kirkinen has studied together with the young musicians of Dolce. Seppo has arranged small clinic and master courses and invited clinicians’ from Handbell Ensembles Sonos from United States (Jukka-Pekka Vainio and Melissa Vainio) and Arsis from Estonia (Vahur Soonberg and Aivar Mae).
The main mission of Dolce has been to enrich worship and musical life in congregations in Kuopio area. In addition Dolce has performed elsewhere in Finland as well as in Sweden, Denmark, Italy and Estonia. Dolce’s first concert tour in United States was in summer 2007. American handbell soloist, Kathy Fink, was touring with Dolce teaching coaching our young ringers.
Dolce has published CD recordings in 2001, 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008.
Handbells are still rare in Finland. In addition to Kuopio there are Handbell ensembles only in Vantaa (from 1990), Rovaniemi (from 2002) and Jyväskylä (from 2008). In 1999 Kuopio Kallavesi congregation purchased 3 octave set of Malmark handbells – first set of Malmark bells in Finland. In 2002 Dolce purchased additional 4th octave followed by 5th octave in 2005 and 2th octave solobells in 2007. Dolce also has 4 octave set of chimes.