Music aficionados generally associate handbell choirs with churches and sacred music,tiffany and that’s certainly a part of The Raleigh Ringers’ repertoire. In concert Saturday at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall they’ll play 75 percent holiday music, a classical piece and some original music.

But they’ll also ring one rock song: “Don’t Stop Believing,” a Journey song re-popularized in recent years by the TV shows “The Sopranos” and “Glee.”

“As something experimental we tried ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and it worked and people liked it,” said director David Harris. “Now every year we take a classic rock piece and play it on this instrument.”

The instrument is made up of dozens of hand-held bells with the choir ringing as many as 90 bells in the average 7-octave piece of music.

The Raleigh Ringers

Where: Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall.

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday.

Tickets: $10-$15 at www.johndaniel.com/rr or 1-800-514-3849. Advance sales only;silver bangles no service charge when ordering online.

“What sets us apart and makes us unique is we have people playing one instrument,” said Harris, whose full-time job is in software development. “If you think of a set of bells as an instrument, like a piano keyboard, we have people responsible for a few notes of that instrument. Although there are solo ringers who [play] things quickly off the table, you cannot really play a melody without involving many people playing that music line. We have to work together to make that melody and that presents challenges.”

Among them: Listening to one another and every ringer hitting the same, correct dynamics (soft, loud, crescendos) as written in the music.

“We have to bring the group together and have a lot of teamwork,” Harris said.

A native of Lockhaven and a 1982 graduate of Penn State where he majored in computer science and minored in music, Harris first brought The Raleigh Ringers to Pittsburgh in 2007 at the behest of college friend Dan Volitich, president and co-founder of John Daniel Associates, a local IT company that’s also presenting Saturday’s concert.

Harris formed the group in 1990 after ringing in a church choir that attempted more secular silver rings music.

“This instrument can do more than enhance worship kind of situations, and that’s where it kicked off into having a community-based group,” he said.

Each year all 17 members of the handbell choir must re-audition for the group and sometimes people who have been in the choir do get bumped.

“It’s the least fun part of my job,” Harris said. “Because [handbells are] mainly played in churches, people say, ‘How cruel,’ but take other professional music outlets like orchestras and this is how it works. You have to do your best and beat out the other guy.”

Harris said some members who win a spot pick up their lives and move to Raleigh, N.C., to become part of the choir. The group rehearses for three-and-a-half hours every Thursday and begins practicing Christmas music in August.

Harris said in the beginning, before their two PBS specials, The Raleigh Ringers mostly drew other silver bracelets handbell ringers, but in more recent years the group has generated interest among general audiences.

“We have our home Christmas concerts and we now have close to 4,000 people who come,” he said. “Our goal is to be more accepted on the concert stages where you would have a choral group or an orchestra, a band or other more common groups.”