Carillon Profile: Rockefeller Memorial Chapel

Carillon Profile: Walter F. Tilton Memorial Carillon, Norwood, Massachusetts

The Walter F. Tilton Memorial Carillon in the town of Norwood, Massachusetts, is being restored, carrying on its iconic status in the community. The entire transmission system, from the keyboard wires to the clappers, was replaced to create a more modern, playable instrument. The updated design retained the legacy roller-bar system and the original keyboard, although the keyboard was reconditioned and outfitted with modern parts. The steel bell frame had rusted due to decades of exposure, so it was treated and repainted to withstand many more decades. The B. A. Sunderlin Bell Foundry of Ruther Glen, Virginia, is carrying out the carillon work and will finish the project this spring.

Notable figures in the North American carillon community and local community have stewarded the instrument for decades. The late Sally Slade Warner, renowned for her deft arrangements and moving performances, played on the instrument for decades until her retirement in the early 2000s. Slade Warner performed repairs and renovation work herself in the 1980s to make the instrument more playable. Bernie Cooper, assistant town manager, was also critical in taking care of the instrument. He worked with Slade Warner to bring the instrument back into better working order, and he ensured financial support for the carillon until his untimely passing in January 2021. He and Slade Warner started the annual summer carillon concert series in the 1980s.

Another notable figure is Lee Leach, a current carillonist. Leach had noticed the extensive rust on the bell frame and the difficult playability as early as the 1990s, when he had first learned to play the instrument. When the state of Massachusetts passed new legislation that made local taxes and state appropriations available to communities to fund preservation projects, Leach and Cooper set to work and applied for a grant from the Community Preservation Act to fund the carillon’s restoration, which was approved by the local committee and then awarded by the state.

The Walter F. Tilton Memorial Carillon is one of the few municipal carillons in North America. The funds for the instrument were donated by local leader Walter F. Tilton to recognize all the Norwood residents who had fought in past wars. The fifty-bell instrument was cast and installed by Gillett & Johnston of England and dedicated on November 11, 1928, the tenth anniversary of Armistice Day. The carillon is located within Norwood’s Memorial Town Hall and is managed by the municipality. Three of the bells were replaced since the carillon’s inception, but otherwise no major work was done until now.

The carillon will continue in its summer carillon concert series in 2022, inviting guest recitalists from near and far. The traditional informal ring by local carillonists will take place on the afternoon of the Fourth of July. These musicians will play on occasion, including Margaret Angelini, Anton Fleissner, Jennifer Herrmann, Lee Leach, Thomas Lee, Christina Meyer, Margaret Pan, and John Whiteside. The anticipated date for its first recital is May 22, 2022, when Norwood will honor its veterans as part of its 150th-anniversary celebration of its founding.

—Kimberly Schafer, PhD, Carillonist and campanologist, Chicago, Illinois

All photos credit: Lee Leach

Beaumont Memorial Tower

Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan

The Michigan State University’s Beaumont Memorial Tower in East Lansing is centrally located on campus in an open, wooded park ideal for carillon concerts. Apart from its beautiful natural setting, Beaumont Memorial Tower is distinguished as the first recipient of a Michigan Historical Marker in 1955 on the occasion of the centennial celebration of the university. Alumnus John W. Beaumont and his wife Alice donated the funds for the tower and chime as a monument to the college’s mission and achievements.

The tower was designed in the neo-Gothic style by the architectural firm of Donaldson and Meier of Detroit and built in 1929. The current carillon of Beaumont Memorial Tower started as a ten-bell chime cast by Gillett & Johnston of Croydon, England, in 1928 and installed in 1929. The chime was performed manually from a baton keyboard, and the bells were automated to ring the quarter-hour and hour. Shortly after its installation, three more bells were ordered from Gillett & Johnston and installed in 1930, so that the college’s Alma Mater, “Close by the Winding Cedar,” could be performed with the available pitches.

The chime underwent multiple expansions and improvements until it became the world-class carillon it is today. Russell Daubert, the first chimer, advocated for the expansion of the instrument to a carillon, and in 1935 ten more bells were added—bringing the total number of bells to 23. In the late 1940s, due to the advocacy of new carillonist Wendell Westcott, 14 more bells were added in 1950, bringing the total to 37, but these treble bells were cast by the Dutch firm Petit & Fritsen. The Michigan State College Fund solicited for ten more bells shortly thereafter, and six treble bells were installed in 1952, while four bass bells were installed in 1959. The new trebles were cast by Petit & Fritsen, while the four bass bells were cast by Gillett & Johnston. By this time, the carillon consisted of 47 bells at a concert size of four octaves.

By the early 1970s, the instrument had fallen into disrepair, and in 1986 the bells were disconnected from the keyboard and automatic playing mechanism. The university hired the Royal Eijsbouts Bell Foundry of the Netherlands restore the clock mechanism, automate the lowest 27 bells, install a new central transmission system with directed cranks, replace the 20 Petit & Fritsen bells, and add two more bells. The replacement treble bells rectified the tuning discrepancy between the bells cast by two firms. Margo Halsted, the University of Michigan carillonneur, was a strong supporter of the carillon’s renovation and was the formal consultant on the project. After this last renovation was completed, the carillon consisted of 49 bells. The bells are pitched from C3 to D7, absent two bass notes, although they transpose up one whole step from their keyboard position (lowest bell keyed at B-flat).

Margo Halsted served as the visiting university carillonneur from 1996 to 1997, at which time her student Ray McLellan was appointed to the position of university carillonneur. He served in this position until his untimely passing in April 2021. The university carillonist of Grand Valley State University, Julianne Vanden Wyngaard, served as the interim carillonist, and Jonathan Lehrer started as the new university carillonist in August 2022. Other regular performers include Rachel Drobnak, Laurie Harkema, Sally Harwood, and Bill McHarris.

When classes are in session, the carillon is played at noon most days of the week and for special events. Lehrer will continue the carillon performance studio started by his predecessor. The Muelder Summer Carillon Recital series occurs on five to six consecutive Wednesdays in July and August at 6:00 p.m., started in 1996 through the generosity of faculty member and administrator Milton Muelder.

—Kimberly Schafer, PhD, Carillonist and campanologist, Chicago, Illinois

Carillon website: music.msu.edu/carillon/history-of-beaumont-tower-and-the-carillon

Kimberly Schafer, founder and partner of Community Bell Advocates, LLC, is a bell performer, researcher, and advocate. She has performed on the carillon since a college student, in recital across the United States and Europe.

Schafer studied bell instruments as part of her musicological dissertation research at the University of Texas at Austin and serves as the editor-in-chief of the Bulletin, the journal of the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America (gcna.org). She advises institutions on the repair, installation, performance, and programming of tower bells and bell instruments in North America and coordinates events to promote them.

The Netherlands Carillon monument, located in Arlington, Virginia, next to the Arlington National Cemetery and Iwo Jima Memorial, was a gift from the Netherlands to the United States in gratitude for their liberation during World War II and Marshall Plan aid. A Dutch press officer, Govert Verheul, had dreamed up the idea of giving the United States a carillon at a time when the administration was searching for an appropriate present for their generous benefactor. The subsequent “Bells for America” committee solicited donations from Dutch people, provinces, businesses, and organizations for the carillon. Queen Juliana announced the gift to the United States on her state visit to the country in 1952. While the bells were cast only one year later, the carillon would not be installed and dedicated until 1960.

The carillon and tower were designed to showcase Dutch culture and society. The instrument was provisioned with forty-nine bells cast by three different Dutch bell foundries: Eijsbouts, Petit & Fritsen, and Van Bergen. The bells were exquisitely inscribed and decorated to represent varying divisions of Dutch society. The lowest were dedicated to Dutch territories, the middle to professions and professional organizations, and the highest to the youth. Eugenia van den Grinten-Lücker, Louis Meijs, and Gerard van Remmen designed the bell ornamentation. The rhyming couplets centered on Dutch life and aspirations were composed by poet Ben van Eysselsteijn. The modernist tower was designed by Joost W. C. Boks and is bordered by Dutch royal lions by Paul Koning and forty-nine tulip beds to match the number of bells.

The carillon project was delayed and marked with problems from the beginning. Dutch carillonist Ferdinand Timmermans and Belgian Kamiel Lefévere performed for the official presentation of the carillon to the United States on May 5, 1954, Liberation Day for the Netherlands. The carillon was housed in a temporary structure in West Potomac Park until its relocation in its permanent tower in 1960. By that time, the United States had its own growing carillon culture, so Charles T. Chapman, the carillonist of the Luray Singing Tower memorial carillon, Luray, Virginia, inaugurated the instrument during its formal dedication on May 5, 1960.

In 1963, Frank Law, also carillonist at the Valley Forge Carillon, became the first director carillonneur of the instrument and tirelessly advocated for its performance and care. By 1970, though, the carillon had already fallen into disrepair. Thanks to Law’s advocacy and publicity from The Washington Post, the National Park Service allocated the necessary funds to screen off the open belfry from birds, refurbish the transmission system, and replace the keyboard.

A full renovation did not happen until 1994–1995, which was conducted by Eijsbouts. Two Dutch businessmen, Berend Boks, son of the tower’s architect, and Kersen de Jong, spearheaded the fundraising campaign that gathered donations from Dutch businesses and the government. One of the primary aims was to re-tune the smallest thirty-six bells to sound more concordantly together, since the three bell foundries did not produce bells of the same casting and tuning quality. Other improvements in the renovation included yet another new keyboard aligned with the North American keyboard standard, new transmission system, new clappers, and a new automatic playing mechanism controlled by a computer, replacing the obsolete tape-playing mechanism.

In 1995, the year of the fiftieth anniversary of Dutch liberation, Prime Minister Wim Kok presented a fiftieth carillon bell to President Bill Clinton. The newest Eijsbouts bell was now the smallest, and it featured two lions to represent the Netherlands and a bald eagle for the United States, along with the message of “Freedom / Friendship.” The newly expanded and renovated instrument was inaugurated by Washington, D.C., carillonist Edward Nassor and Dutch carillonist Jacques Maassen on May 5, 1995. Nassor, Law’s student, had become the director carillonneur after Law’s death in 1985. The liberation commemoration and celebration was a lavish two-day affair, including a ceremony honoring fallen soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery, the performance of the musical Bells of Freedom composed for the occasion, and a dinner and dance for over 1,000 Dutch businessmen and American veterans and diplomats.

In 2010, the tower was closed to visitors due to safety issues. Water damage had noticeably corroded bolts and the exterior paint, raising concerns about the tower’s structural integrity. By 2015, the automatic-playing mechanism had broken, ceasing the daily noon and 6:00 p.m. playings. Because of these issues and the upcoming seventy-fifth anniversary of the Dutch liberation, an international fundraising team comprising both governments, the Netherlands-America Foundation, and corporate donors raised funds for the latest renovation to the tower and carillon.

The work began in October 2019, when all fifty bells were removed and returned to the Eijsbouts bell foundry in the Netherlands for another round of re-tuning. Three new bells were added, one low and two high, and the bells have been re-keyed at concert pitch, rather than transposing down a minor third. The range extends down to a low G, making the instrument an American grand carillon, and thus continuing the Dutch tradition of expanding and upkeeping their gift according to the prevailing standards. Other improvements include a World Carillon standard keyboard, new clappers, updated automatic-playing mechanism, and new playing cabin. The three new bells were dedicated to extraordinary Americans in the twentieth century: General and Secretary of State George Marshall, Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., and First Lady and activist Eleanor Roosevelt. The three new bells were exhibited in Washington, D.C., in May 2021, and the entire carillon was reinstalled in June 2021. The project had been delayed by a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The tower will undergo repairs until autumn 2021, when an inauguration recital is scheduled. Edward Nassor continues as the director carillonneur of the Netherlands Carillon and will lead the regular concert schedule.

The author consulted three sources for this profile: Tiffany Ng’s doctoral dissertation, “The Heritage of the Future: Historical Keyboards, Technology, and Modernism” (2015); Diederik Oostdijk, Bells for America: The Cold War, Modernism, and the Netherlands Carillon in Arlington (2019); Edward Nassor, “A Culture Inscribed: Inscriptions and Reliefs on the Bells of the Netherlands Carillon, USA,” The Bulletin of the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America 70 (2021).

Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Carillon, The Riverside Church, New York, New York

Perched 23 stories above the bustling streets of Manhattan, the world’s heaviest carillon rings out from The Riverside Church. This grand carillon boasts 74 bells, all housed in the church’s imposing Gothic tower overlooking the Hudson River. While its smallest bell weighs only ten pounds, its 20-ton bourdon sounds a low C and measures over ten feet in diameter, making it the largest and heaviest tuned carillon bell ever cast. A sister instrument to the carillon at the University of Chicago’s Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, The Riverside Church carillon is, like the Chicago instrument, an enduring gift from John D. Rockefeller, dedicated to his mother as a Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Carillon.

The Riverside carillon originally began as a still-formidable 53-bell instrument cast by Gillett & Johnston and installed at the Park Avenue Baptist Church in 1925. This instrument, dedicated by Belgian carillonist Anton Brees, was known at the time as the Park Avenue Baptist Church carillon. Percival Price was later named carillonist. It also attracted significant media attention because it was played by Ruth Muzzy Conniston, one of the first female carillonists in North America, while Price was away studying at the Belgian carillon school in Mechelen. Articles about Conniston during this period emphasize the weight and size of the carillon, with reporters expressing shock and awe that such an immense instrument could be played (quite well, reportedly) by a woman. Following Conniston’s brief tenure, the job went to illustrious Belgian carillonist Kamiel Lefévere, who remained until 1960.

When the church moved to a new location on Riverside Drive in 1930, the carillon moved as well. In order to fit the new location’s much grander, 392-foot bell tower (the tallest church tower in the United States), the carillon was expanded to 72 bells—all by Gillett & Johnston—including the present 20-ton bourdon. At this time, it broke ground by becoming the first carillon in history with a range of more than five octaves, slightly preceding the installation of the Chicago Rockefeller carillon. 

In 1955, 56 of the upper bells were sent to the Netherlands to be melted down and recast by the Van Bergen bell foundry, which is also when the final two upper bells were added to bring the total bell count up to the present 74. However, in the early 2000s, these 58 Van Bergen bells were removed from the carillon and completely replaced by bells cast by Whitechapel when the instrument underwent a multi-year restoration. In recasting these 58 bells, Whitechapel copied the original Gillett & Johnston profiles for some of the lowest bells and used modern profiles for the rest. Also, in the course of this renovation, the pneumatic assist previously used for the largest bells was removed entirely. 

Throughout its 98-year history, the Riverside carillon has employed many notable carillonists, including those mentioned above as well as James A. Lawson (1960–1989), Joseph Clair Davis (1990–1998), and Dionisio A. Lind (1999–2018); the latter was the world’s first Black professional carillonist, according to University of Michigan carillonist Tiffany Ng. In the present day, the bells are played for Sunday services and special services by Charles Semowich (carillonist), Lynnli Wang, and Carla Staffaroni (assistant carillonists). Along with regular hour and quarter-hour strikes and a weekly swinging peal, there is a carillon recital every Sunday afternoon at 3:00 p.m. During the summer, the church hosts a carillon recital series of five concerts by guest and local carillonists.

Carillon Profile: Massey/Drury Memorial Carillon

Metropolitan United Church of Toronto, Canada

The Massey/Drury Memorial Carillon of Metropolitan United Church in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, has undergone a renovation for the 100th anniversary of its installation. When the original 23-bell carillon was installed in 1922, it was the first modern carillon in North America, starting a wave of post-World War I installations on the continent. The initial 23 bells were cast by Gillett & Johnston of Croydon, England. Twelve more mid-range bells were added in 1960, cast by Petit & Fritsen of Aarle-Rixtel, the Netherlands. In 1972, 19 more bells were added at the top range, cast by Paccard of Annecy, France, bringing the total number of bells to 54.

The initial 23 bells were a memorial gift from Chester D. Massey in honor of his wife, while the second set of bells was donated by Dr. Charles Drury. The Massey foundation donated the third set of bells.

The recent renovation work on the carillon was performed by Meeks, Watson & Company of Georgetown, Ohio. All the bells from the three founders remain, although the Petit & Fritsen bells have been retuned to ring more harmoniously with the others. Other improvements include a new keyboard, new transmission system, new bell frame, new clappers and headpieces, and the relocation of the Paccard bells to a position for better sound egress and playability from the keyboard.

The renovated carillon was rededicated on October 16. Before the Sunday morning service, Roy Lee, Metropolitan’s carillonneur since 2016, performed a 30-minute recital. After the service, Rev. Jason Meyers presided over the rededication ceremony, and carillonneur Margaret Pan performed a short rededication recital, premiering Bells United by Naoko Tsujita, which was commissioned for the occasion. On October 15, special events were held for 29 local and guest carillonists, including two recitals, four presentations, and two masterclass sessions led by Margaret Pan.

Roy Lee performs Sunday mornings before the worship service, while occasionally these preludes are played by other local performers and guest recitalists. A summer series of three recitals is held in June, resuming in 2023.

—Kimberly Schafer, PhD, Carillonist and campanologist, Chicago, Illinois

sites.google.com/metunited.ca/metcarillon100/carillon