Percival Price Symposium

Carillon News

Iowa State University

The 2015 Iowa State University Carillon Festival was held in conjunction with a Midwest Regional Carillon Conference. The September festival was sponsored by the Stanton Memorial Carillon Foundation. The opening concert was performed in Martha-Ellen Tye Recital Hall as well as in two remote locations. For three ensemble works, the musicians were connected via LOLA, a low latency audio-visual streaming system, and performed together by watching each other on LED monitors. 

ISU University Carillonneur
Tin-Shi Tam performed Mirror Image by Chris Hanning on the carillon at ISU with the New World Symphony Percussion Ensemble in Miami Beach, Florida. She also performed Nola by Felix Arndt and Hunting St. Hubert by Ondřej Šárek on the carillon with an ISU student brass quintet in Martha-Ellen Tye Recital Hall. Other selections included Ad Wammes’s GlasWerk for carillon and soundtrack, Peter Paul Olejar’s Threnos and Alex Weiser’s For Whom The Bell Tolls.

Attendees were able to hear the final round of the ISU Carillon Composition Competition. This year’s winning composition is Sisyphus Stone by Kendal Lafayette Fortson of Los Alamos, New Mexico. Composers Ad Wammes, Peter Paul Olejar, and three past winners of the ISU Carillon Composition Competition, Philip Rice, Kyle Shaw, and Alex Weiser, then joined a composers forum via videoconferencing in Tye Recital Hall. This discussion emphasized the various thoughts that a composer has when writing music for the carillon. A few questions were asked by the audience, such as should the composer write for the players to interpret the music or should the players play it as they have it written? The composers all had different opinions.

Guest carillonneurs George Gregory and Julianne Vanden Wyngaard held a seminar called “Your Space or Mine?” in which they addressed aspects of performing duets. These included how to choose a partner, how to play next to someone else, and how to mark the music. They gave advice for players of all skill levels. Gregory and Vanden Wyngaard performed a duet concert, and the festival conference concluded with a dinner party.

Percival Price Symposium

The seventh annual Percival Price Symposium, a one-day conference acknowledging the legacy of the first Dominion Carillonneur, was held in October 2015 at the Peace Tower Carillon in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Featured guest artist was Richard P. Strauss, past carillonneur of Washington National Cathedral and of the City Hall in Albany, New York. A leading carillon technician and designer, Strauss presented lecture, “The Astonishing Development, Arrival, Influence, and Legacy of the English Grand Carillon in North America.”

Brian Swager is carillon editor of THE DIAPASON.

The Petit and Fritsen Bellfoundry delivered a new mobile carillon to the city of Belgorod, Russia. With 51 bells, the carillon has a compass from B-flat to D. Every year in Prokhorovka, approximately 40 kilometers from Belgorod, a significant combat operation between Germany and Russia is commemorated.  A large number of tanks were destroyed in this “world’s greatest tank battle,” which also resulted in many casualties. The battle was a principal turning point in World War II. The carillon is intended to be used in an annual remembrance of the battle. The original plan was to install the carillon in the tower, but they opted for a mobile carillon so that it could be used for a wider variety of events.

Ottawa Dominion Carillonneur Andrea McCrady hosted the 2012 Percival Price Symposium at the Peace Tower carillon. The annual symposium celebrates the legacy of performance, teaching, and campanology of Percival Price, Canada’s first Dominion Carillonneur from 1927 to 1939. Guest artist for the September 2012 symposium was George Gregory.

Send items for “Carillon News” to Dr. Brian Swager, c/o The Diapason, 3030 W. Salt Creek Lane, Suite 201, Arlington Heights, IL 60005-5025; or e-mail [email protected]. For information on the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America: www.gcna.org.

Slater to Retire

James "Bud" Slater will retire from his position
as Carillonneur of the Metropolitan United Church in Toronto, Ontario. With his
final Sunday on the job on March 28, Slater will mark the conclusion of his
35th year as carillonneur of the church. His association with the instrument
actually commenced in late 1954, and his first official recital was played
before the Sunday evening service May 22, 1955 under the watchful eye of his
tutor, Stanley James. Slater was appointed Assistant Carillonneur in 1959. During his tenure at Metropolitan, he had temporary appointments at other Ontario carillon locations, i.e., in Toronto at Exhibition Place and the University of Toronto, as well as Niagara Falls. He appeared frequently as guest carillonneur at the towers in Simcoe, Hamilton, and Ottawa, as well as Montréal, Que., and Victoria, B.C.

Slater became a student member of the Guild of Carillonneurs
in North America in 1955 and qualified as a carillonneur member in 1957 upon
passing an exam at the Guild's congress in Cleveland, Ohio. From 1969 to 1971
Slater served as GCNA president and subsequently, he and his wife, Cecilia,
hosted the Guild's Toronto Congress in 1972. James Slater is the father of
Gordon Slater who since 1977 has served as Dominion Carillonneur at the Peace
Tower Carillon in the Houses of Parliament in Ottawa.

On the eve of his 70th birthday in January, 1997, Bud cites
stairclimbing, cranky knees and reluctant elbows as his reasons for retirement.

1997 GCNA Congress

The Department of Music and Dance and Professor of Music
Albert Gerken have announced that the 1997 Congress of the Guild of
Carillonneurs in North America will be held at the University of Kansas, June
4-7. Major presenters will include Bill De Turk, George Gregory, Mark Holmberg,
Associate Professor of Music Theory at KU, Karel Keldermans, Roy Hamlin
Johnson, Brian Swager, and Edward Williams, Associate Dean of the Graduate
School of Penn State.

With ca. 28,000 students, the University of Kansas is in
Lawrence, a community of ca. 70,000. Directly off Interstate 70, Lawrence is
located about 250 miles from the geographical center of the U.S.A. The
picturesque campus of the University of Kansas is situated atop Mount Oread
overlooking the Kaw River valley to the north and the Wakarusa valley to the
south. Not flat as most foreigners picture Kansas, there will be some climbing
to do to get to various places. The Campanile is central to the campus
overlooking the football stadium and Kansas river valley. It was provided by
alumni and friends of the University as a memorial to the 276 KU students and
faculty who died in World War II.

Unquestionably the most prominent and central feature of the
campus, the 120-foot tall World War II memorial tower houses a 41/2-octave
carillon, cast in 1950 by the John Taylor Foundry. Transposing down a half
step, the 53 bells range in weight from 13,490 lbs. to 12 lbs. The instrument,
which was dedicated in May, 1951, with Anton Brees playing the dedicatory
recitals, was rededicated on April 26, 1996, following a complete renovation by
the I.T. Verdin Company with new consoles supplied by Meeks, Watson &
Company. The new radial action is void of any counter weights and assisted only
by coil springs. The sound is full and resonant but light in the top register,
typical of Taylor bells of that vintage.

Major funding for the renovation was provided by Honorary
members of The GCNA, and Keith and Joan Bunnel of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Both were born and raised in Holmboldt, Kansas, not far from Lawrence, and
Keith Bunnel attended the University of Kansas, graduating in 1946. He was
president of his class and served on the World War II committee that selected
the Campanile and carillon as the memorial project to honor those who were
killed in battle.

The importance of the University of Kansas carillon has been
significant in that it has been at the center of a new genre of carillon
composition since the 1950s. Indeed, until the mid 1950s, very little music of
any significance had been written for the carillon. It was the likes of Ronald
Barnes, the first carillonneur at the University of Kansas, Roy Hamlin Johnson,
formerly of the KU piano faculty, John Pozdro, Professor Emeritus of
Composition and Music Theory at the University, and Gary White, one of Pozdro's
former graduate students in composition, who were the central figures
responsible for creating this wealth of marvelous and exciting new music. Their
works brought about recognition for the carillon as an instrument worthy of
recital status.

Because of the significance of their tremendous contribution
to the art form, many of their works will be featured in recitals during the
congress. It will be a meaningful experience to hear many of these works that
were written for this instrument or carillons of similar timbre. Two new
carillon compositions by Roy Hamlin Johnson and John Pozdro, commissioned by
the KU Department of Music and Dance and The GCNA respectively, will be
premiered at the congress.

Tours of the Reuter Organ Company will be made available to
participants and the beautiful new Wolff concert organ in the recently
completed Bales Recital Hall will be demonstrated and played. This is a
one-of-a-kind instrument you must see and hear.

Registration information is available from congress host
Albert Gerken, Department of Music and Dance, Murphy Hall, The University of
Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045.

"Overtones"

Beginning last October, new bells rang out up and down the
Avenue of the Arts (Broad Street) in Philadelphia. Thirty-nine Eijsbouts bells
were installed, each on top of a light post, weighing from 40 to 300 pounds.
The creator, Robert Coburn, a sound artist and composer from California,
describes the "worlds longest horizontal carillon" as a half-mile
long piano with the capability of playing pre-programmed or live music on an
electronic ivory keyboard which will be located in the basement of the Academy
of Music.

In observance of the 68th anniversary of The Rochester
Carillon, two special performances were given. Dean Robinson's program on
September 16 included favorite songs of the Mayo brothers. David Johnson of St.
Paul, MN, was the guest recitalist on September 17. The Rochester Carillon was
dedicated on September 17, 1928, and is located in the Mayo Clinic in
Rochester, Minnesota.

David McCain sends word of a new 49-bell carillon at the
First Baptist Church on the Square in LaGrange, Georgia, replete with
"ninety-two electrical connections from the bells to the keyboard and
computer."

In response to a request from Unesco for a program
commemorating the tenth anniversary of the accident at Chernobyl, carillonneurs
Charles Semovich and Pieter Blonk gave a recital at the Albany City Hall in
Albany, New York, on April 26, 1996. Works performed included Lagrima by
Francisco Tárrega, Bells of Hell by Theophil Rusterholz, and Larence
Curry's Prelude on "Dies Irae." Both Charles and Pieter were shown
playing the Albany carillon on the Channel 13 news broadcast.

The fourth annual Keyboard Explorations junior high school
summer music camp was hosted by the Iowa State University Music Department from
June 17-22, 1996. Participants had the opportunity to learn about various kinds
of keyboard instruments and had hands-on experiences in playing them. Eight
participants studied carillon under ISU University Carillonneur Tin-shi Tam.
Two carillon concerts were performed by students towards the end of the week.

After over a decade of silence, inactivity, and exposure to
the elements, the 23-bell carillon located on the property of Schulmerich Carillons, Inc. in Sellersville, Pennsylvania, rang again in a recital given by Lisa Lonie (Trinity Church, Holland, PA) on September 21. Approximately 250 listeners attended the recital which marked the end of a five-day sales and service conference. The carillon, cast in 1928 by Gillett and Johnston, was moved to its present location in 1952 from Belmont College in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1979, Frank Law, carillonneur at Valley Forge, began a nightly summer recital series in Sellersville which continued for six years.

Competition winners

The Guild of Carillonneurs in North America has awarded
Second Prize to two composers in its 1996 Carillon Composition Competition. (No
First Prize was awarded.) The winning compositions were Nocturne
style='font-style:normal'> by Ennis Fruhauf, of Santa Barbara, California (USA)
and Prelude con Fughetta by
Marcel Siebers, of Cuyk, The Netherlands. Both compositions were given their
première performance by Todd Fair, of Amsterdam (Netherlands), at the
congress of the GCNA on June 4, 1996 at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church,
Cohasset, Massachusetts. Both composers received a cash prize, and both pieces
will be published by the guild in the near future. Another competition is
planned for January of 1998.

Premières

A new carillon composition, Winter Song
style='font-style:normal'>, by Roy Hamlin Johnson, was given its
première performance by John Gouwens on June 26, 1996 on the carillon of
the Town Hall in Norwood, Massachusetts, at the congress of the Guild of
Carillonneurs in North America. The new piece was commissioned by the Johan
Franco Composition Committee of the GCNA and is published by the guild. Many of
Dr. Johnson's earlier compositions are staples of the repertory of
carillonneurs throughout North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.
This is the sixth carillon composition to the commissioned by the GCNA.

Brian Swager is carillon editor of THE DIAPASON

Two Dutch organist/carillonneurs were named Knights in the Order of Oranje-Nassau: Adolph Rots of Garrelsweer and Gert Oldenbeuving of Zutphen.

Carleton University (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) and the School for Studies in Art & Culture announce that the school’s Bachelor of Music program is now accepting applications from Canadian and international students wishing to pursue carillon performance studies. The university has installed a practice carillon in a specially designed room on campus, and has entered into an agreement with the House of Commons whereby Carleton students may play at regulated times on the Peace Tower carillon. For more information: www.carleton.ca/music.

Berea College, Berea, Kentucky, held a ceremony to rename the Berea College carillon after John Courter. Courter, who died in June 2010, joined the Berea College faculty in 1971 and served there for 39 years. He was music professor, organist, and carillonneur at the college and is highly regarded here and abroad for his carillon compositions. A large bronze plaque was installed in Draper Hall, which houses the carillon.  

The University of Chicago’s Rockefeller Memorial Chapel has released a new compact disc of organ, choral, and carillon music, Rockefeller Gala I, recorded live at the chapel, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of John D. Rockefeller’s “final gift” that established the chapel and its diverse arts and spiritual programs. The 71-minute CD features university organist Thomas Weisflog, carillonneurs Wylie Crawford and James Fackenthal, and the Rockefeller Chapel Choir and Motet Choir under the direction of James Kallembach performing English, French, and American classics in the contemporary era. Almost all of this music was written during the lifetime of the chapel itself. Rockefeller made his donation in 1910, and the initial architectural drawings were created shortly after the end of the First World War. Construction was begun in 1925, and the chapel was dedicated in 1928.  The E. M. Skinner organ was built with the chapel itself, and the carillon was installed in 1932. The CD can be purchased by mailing a check for $17 to: Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, 5850 S. Woodlawn Ave., Chicago IL 60637, attention Lorraine Brochu.

Send items for “Carillon News” to Dr. Brian Swager, c/o The Diapason, 3030 W. Salt Creek Lane, Suite 201, Arlington Heights, IL 60005-5025; or e-mail
[email protected]. For information on the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America: www.gcna.org.

Brian Swager is carillon editor of THE DIAPASON.

Aimé Lombaert, a well-known Flemish carillonneur, passed away on October 30, 2008, at age 63. He had just retired from his positions as municipal carillonneur in the Belgian cities of
Bruges, Deinze, Poperinge, Damme, and Geraardsbergen. Lombaert was born in Oudenaarde, Belgium, and studied at the Royal Music Conservatory in Ghent, the Lemmens Institute, and the Royal Carillon School in Mechelen. He received his diploma from the Royal Carillon School in 1978, became assistant carillonneur to Eugeen Uten in Bruges in 1980, succeeding him as municipal carillonneur in 1984. In Deinze, he played one of the few “major-third” carillons.

As a result of the economic downturn, Bok Tower Gardens in Lake Wales, Florida, announced the cancellation of its International Carillon Festival in 2009 as well as the elimination of the positions of the assistant carillonneur/librarian and the administrative assistant.

David Monaghan, Curator of Canada’s House of Commons, announced the appointment of Andrea McCrady to the position of Dominion Carillonneur on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada. McCrady’s former carillon position at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Spokane, Washington is open.

Trinity College, a liberal arts school with approximately 2,200 students in Hartford, Connecticut, is seeking a college carillonneur. The original 30-bell carillon built by the John Taylor Bellfoundry was enlarged to 49 bells in 1978. It hangs in the tower of the Trinity College Chapel.

Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, holds its 2009 Carillon Festival September 5, 10 am–4 pm. The guest carillonneur is Adrian Patrick Gebruers from Cobh, Ireland. He will conduct a seminar on Irish carillon music and perform a recital at the festival. In addition, the ISU Celtic Dance Society will present a program on Celtic dances. Hosting the festival is associate professor of music and university carillonneur Tin-shi Tam. In conjunction with the carillon festival, a carillon composition competition is being held to encourage the writing of original carillon compositions by young composers, under age 35. Prizes include a cash award of $500 and the premiere performance of the winning composition at the festival.

The Begijnhof Church, Sint-Jan-de-Doper (St. John the Baptist), in Leuven (Louvain), Belgium, is expanding its 16-bell chime into a carillon. The historic series of 16 Gillett & Johnston bells, which were once part of the carillon of the Leuven University Library, have been played in recent years by an automatic chiming mechanism. The Royal Eijsbouts firm of Asten, the Netherlands, is casting 29 new bells in the profile and tuning of the Gillett & Johnston bells. The instrument will be played by means of a baton keyboard in the new world standard. The Begijnhof is now part of the university and belongs to the UNESCO World Heritage. The carillon will be played for the first time during the Open Monument Day on September 13.

Carillonneur Piet van den Broek passed away on October 26, 2008, at age 92. Van den Broek was director of the Royal Belgian Carillon School and municipal carillonneur in Mechelen, Belgium, from 1965 until his retirement in 1981. Born in Chaam, the Netherlands, he left at age 18 for Mechelen to study at the Lemmens Institute. Upon his graduation in 1938 he became adjunct organist at St. Rombouts Cathedral. He began carillon studies with Staf Nees in 1941 and received his final diploma from the carillon school four years later.

Send items for “Carillon News” to Dr. Brian Swager, c/o The Diapason, 3030 W. Salt Creek Lane, Suite 201, Arlington Heights, IL 60005-5025; <brian@
allegrofuoco.com>. For information on the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America: GCNA, 37 Noel Dr., Williamsville, NY 14221; <www.gcna.org&gt;.

Sister Marie Theodore Girten, OP, died November 3, 2009, at St. Dominic Villa, Sinsinawa, Wisconsin. Sister Marie Theodore made her first religious profession as a Sinsinawa Dominican August 5, 1946, and her final profession August 5, 1949.
Sister Marie Theodore taught music and served as principal organist for the parishes at which she taught for 23 years. She ministered as principal organist at the Motherhouse in Sinsinawa for 36 years and as an assistant in the Motherhouse pharmacy for 20 years. She served in Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa, and as principal organist at St. Raphael Cathedral, Madison, while teaching at St. Raphael School and at the Motherhouse, 1969–2005.
Sister Marie Theodore was born March 20, 1923, in Chicago, the daughter of John and Elizabeth (Hoss) Girten. Her parents and a brother, Theodore Girten, preceded her in death. She is survived by two sisters, Ruth Mieling and Therese Breiter; a brother, Walter Girten; nieces, nephews, and her Dominican Sisters with whom she shared life for 63 years.

Markwell James Perry died October 5, 2009, at Brantford General Hospital in Ontario, Canada. He was 93. A former president of the Royal Canadian College of Organists, he was named honorary president in 2005. He was past president and an honorary member of the Ontario Registered Music Teachers Association and past vice president of the Canadian Federation of Musicians. For 53 years he served as music director at Colborne Street (Heritage) United Church in Brantford, and for more than 40 years as chapel organist at Beckett-Glaves Family Funeral Centre in Brantford.

Lorraine Schramm died October 4, 2009, in Albert City, Iowa, at the age of 75. She earned a BA degree from Buena Vista College and did graduate work at the University of Minnesota. She had served at the United Methodist church in Storm Lake, Iowa, and since 1996 at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Elbert City. During the 1980s and 1990s Schramm operated Music Plus, a music store where she gave piano lessons and sold sheet music. She was a past dean of the Buena Vista AGO chapter.

Richard A. Starkjohann died October 13, 2009 in Riverside, California. He graduated in 1952 from Doane College in Crete, Nebraska, where he majored in music. After service in the U.S. Air Force, he taught music in public schools in Montana, and then moved to California, where he did graduate study at the University of Redlands. He served as pianist and organist at Unity of the Crossroads Church in Riverside, and at St. Bernardine’s Catholic Church in San Bernardino for more than 25 years.

Sister Cecil Steffen, OP (Edmund), died December 8, 2009, at St. Dominic Villa, Sinsinawa, Wisconsin. Sister Cecil made her first religious profession as a Sinsinawa Dominican August 5, 1946. She taught piano and music to elementary and secondary students for 26 years. Sister Cecil served as a professor of music, composer, and liturgist at Dominican University (formerly Rosary College), River Forest, Illinois, for 30 years, in addition to serving in Oklahoma, New York, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota. She ministered as a musician and teacher at the Motherhouse in Sinsinawa from 2001 to 2005.
Sister Cecil was born March 21, 1919, in Chicago, the daughter of Richard and Frieda (Helmold) Steffen. Her parents and a brother, Richard Steffen, preceded her in death. She is survived by cousins and her Dominican Sisters.

Sally Slade Warner, organist and carillonneur, died December 4, 2009 at the age of 77, of cancer, in the Merrimack Valley Hospice, Haverhill, Massachusetts. Born September 6, 1932 in Worcester, Massachusetts, and raised and educated in Fitchburg, she majored in organ performance at New England Conservatory, and shortly afterward passed both the Associateship and Choir Master examinations of the American Guild of organists. As an organist, she was for some years associated with Everett Titcomb at the Church of St. John the Evangelist in Boston, eventually succeeding him after his death. After leaving that position, she served as a substitute organist and accompanist for the rest of her life. During the 1970s she studied carillon playing, first with Earl Chamberlain, and then at the Royal Carillon School in Mechelen, Belgium, where she received her diploma “with great distinction.”
In 1971 Sally moved to Andover, Massachusetts, initially as house counselor at Abbot Academy, but two years later she was hired as a music librarian at Phillips Academy, Andover, a position she held until her retirement 30 years later. During her tenure she is credited with having transformed a meager sound recording collection into one of the most extensive collections of its kind in any comparable school. Thanks to her encyclopedic knowledge of musical literature, she became a valuable resource to students and faculty alike, and was involved in many facets of the school’s musical life as an associate faculty member. Before long she also became carillonneur and carillon instructor at the academy, where she gave regular concerts and tutored a number of students in carillon playing, until the carillon tower was closed for structural reasons in the 1990s.
In 1985 she was appointed carillonneur of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Cohasset, Massachusetts, where she was responsible for both playing and engaging guest players for the annual summer series of carillon concerts, a position she held until the time of her death. She also composed a number of carillon arrangements popular with her fellow carillonneurs, and gave carillon recitals throughout North America as well as in Europe. In 1988 she received a medal for Distinguished Service to the Carillon from the University of California, Berkeley.
Sally was an active member of both the Boston and Merrimack Valley AGO chapters, having served both in several capacities, and was also an active member of the Guild of Carillonneurs of North America, from which she recently received a citation for her many contributions to the art of carillon playing. Since 1969 she had been a valued Trustee of Methuen Memorial Music Hall in Methuen, Massachusetts, serving for many years on the committee that plans and implements the summer recital series and other musical programs, and frequently playing the Great Organ for weddings and other events. During the year preceding her death, she was a productive member of the committee that organized a successful event commemorating the Music Hall’s centennial year.
—Barbara Owen