DULUTH — Bill Alexander, founder and longtime leader of the acclaimed handbell ensemble Strikepoint, died early Monday morning at age 70. The cause was cancer, according to a CaringBridge page maintained by Alexander's children.
"It is with breaking hearts that we share the devastating news that Bill Alexander, founder and director emeritus of Strikepoint, passed away early this morning," the ensemble posted Monday on Facebook. "Please join all current and former Strikepointers in sending love to Bill's many, many friends and family."
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Derek Bromme, a Strikepoint member for over a decade, was announced in September as Alexander's successor in the role of artistic director.
"He set such a great foundation for what Strikepoint is," Bromme said about Alexander, "that, basically, I just get to keep steering a ship that's already been created and out to sea."
Strikepoint was officially founded in 1984, inspired by the enjoyment Alexander saw the community having at performances of music by George F. Handel and others. It is one of the world's leading handbell ensembles, touring widely in the United States and abroad.
"Bill used to say that if you were in a really good band, you would be one of hundreds of really good bands," said Nancy Eaton, an ensemble member from the beginning, "but in Strikepoint, you have the opportunity to be at the top of the art form."
In August, Alexander realized a dream by returning with his group to Japan, where they performed at the 21st International Handbell Symposium. "The very first tour that Strikepoint ever did was to go to Japan," noted Bromme. "It seemed like a full-circle moment."
For all the ensemble's success, it has remained rooted in the community at Duluth's First United Methodist Church, also known as Coppertop. At the time of his death, Alexander was the church's director of handbell ministries and its director of communications.
"That was his family church," said Bromme. "That's where he raised his kids; that's where he and his wife attended."
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During the coronavirus pandemic, Alexander "learned a whole bunch of technology" to enhance the church's online presence, Bromme said.
"It's been a long legacy of him being there at that church," he continued. "Just a pillar of leadership."
Alexander worked with numerous bell ensembles in the Northland and beyond, including several at Coppertop. "He runs his handbell choirs," the News Tribune reported in 2015, "like a hockey program, with the youth feeding into the touring choir."
"You create something bigger than yourself," Alexander told the News Tribune at that time. "You have to rely on everybody. People come to know that if they're not there it's detrimental to everybody else in the group."
"This is like a family," Libby Gaalaas, a Strikepoint member since 2009, told the News Tribune in 2023. "(It's) not just an ensemble where we show up and practice and then go home and do that over and over. This is definitely a very tight-knit group, and there's a lot of love."
In addition to its extensive touring, Strikepoint has recorded nine albums, according to the group's website. The group has collaborated with other local groups including the Arrowhead Chorale and Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra.
With Strikepoint, Alexander helped spur a rapid rise in popularity for handbell ensembles around the world. From the beginning, the group was notable for performing without a conductor. Speaking with the News Tribune in 2023, Alexander explained the group's uncanny synchronicity simply by saying, "Magic happens."
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"At the time," said Bromme about Strikepoint's founding, "there really weren't conductor-less groups ... (Alexander) said, 'I'm going to play in it, and we're going to be an elite handbell ensemble, and that's what it's going to be."
The group commissioned original work, and in 2013 premiered "Lake Superior Prayer": a piece written by Irene and Jay Harris in the wake of Duluth's devastating 2012 flood.
"I would personally rank them as one of the top two or three handbell ensembles in the country," Irene Harris told the News Tribune in 2013. "When I'm training my handbell choirs, we get together and we watch DVDs of Strikepoint working."
Alexander was a lifelong Hermantown resident, said Eaton. His initial instrument was the trumpet, and he went on to be pep band director at the College of St. Scholastica despite not attending the college as a student.
Eaton explained that to better answer his students' more technical questions, Alexander decided in adulthood to attend the University of Wisconsin-Superior, where he earned a degree in music education.
Over Alexander's career, his educational work included being band director at Floodwood and then Marshall School. Bromme was a student at Marshall when he first encountered Alexander.
"He had this semi-professional bell choir," said Bromme, "and he treated students just the same. Just because you're a ninth grade trumpet player doesn't mean that you (can't) be excellent."
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Alexander also owned Gopher Shoe Repair, formerly owned by his grandfather, at 18 N. First Ave. W. He worked at the since-closed shop from 1970-2010, according to his Facebook profile. For some of those years, it was Duluth's only shoe repair shop.
He was married for 42 years to the "bandroom sweetheart" he fell for when both were students at Hermantown High, according to the 2018 obituary for Cindy Alexander. She co-founded Strikepoint with her husband and also founded the Hermantown Star newspaper.
The Alexanders had two children and touched the lives of countless more young people and adults. "There are so many stories," said Bromme. "The legacy of what Bill taught them doesn't go away."
"We've gotten comments from people around the world, and lots of memories shared by former Strikepointers," said Eaton. "It has reinforced the knowledge that once you are in Strikepoint, you are there forever. You are always Strikepointers. We are a family."
That sense of family connection was apparent at annual Christmas Eve performances by the "Extollers," with all present and former Coppertop handbell ensemble participants invited to join in musical reunions.
"Whenever someone's getting (ready) to leave the group, I always tell them, 'If you read the fine print of your contract, you can't ever really leave Strikepoint,'" Alexander told the News Tribune at the time of his retirement last year. "I said in my letter of farewell to the choir that I hope that also applies to me."
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