The Great Lakes Regional Carillon Gathering, which took place October 4–5, 2024, at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, brought together carillonists, bell enthusiasts, and students. In addition to the thirty-eight registered participants, the public recitals attracted additional guests to this intermittently held gathering. Julie Zhu and Navajo composer Connor Chee were featured composers. Guest artists Jonathan Lehrer of Michigan State University, East Lansing, and Linda Dzuris of Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina, presented recitals and masterclasses. Workshops and panel discussions explored electro-acoustic and acoustic carillon works, women and the carillon, and a survey of bells in the university’s Stearns Collection of Musical Instruments, which comprises more than 3,000 historical and contemporary instruments from around the world. Attendees also explored a sonic and ecological exhibition inspired by the recent carillon composition Otsi’tsistó:sera by Dawn Avery, a composer of Mohawk descent.
In a recital by Tiffany Ng, lead organizer and University of Michigan carillonist, the Midwest premiere of Into the Glittering World by Connor Chee was presented. Chee’s Hózhó for organ, performed by Latimer Rogland, was featured in the University of Michigan’s organ student showcase on the C. B. Fisk, Inc., Opus 87 in Blanche Anderson Moore Hall, within the Earl V. Moore Building. Rogland also offered works by Dieterich Buxtehude and Louis-Claude d’Aquin. T. Logan Rees performed music of John Bull and Nicolas de Grigny; the program concluded with Felix Mendelssohn’s Sonata IV in B-flat, opus 65, number 4, performed by Skyelar Raiti. Students from the University of Michigan and the University of Chicago presented selections from Chee’s Melodies for Kinyaa’áanii and The Navajo Piano at the closing carillon concert. University of Chicago performers were Tiffany Tu, Rowan Shih, and Alex Sheng, a University of Chicago alumnus now studying at the University of Michigan. Performers from the University of Michigan included Grace Jackson, Adam Lenhart, Sarah Penrose, Meghan Wysocki, Eric Whitmer, and recent graduate Christine
El-Hage Walters.
Julie Zhu, composer, artist, and carillonist, performed her work bellVoix, for carillon, voice, “spy,” and amplified electronics at Burton Memorial Tower. As a site-responsive composition, this piece cultivates direct engagement with the audience outside the tower. bellVoix requires two participants—an individual on the ground to serve as a “spy” and the performer in the tower, who is improvising both on the carillon and verbally with an electronic track. Via phone, the “spy” shares information with the performer about the people on the ground, allowing the performer to comment and ask questions as if the tower has taken on a life of its own. In this work, Zhu invites questions such as: If the carillon could speak, what would it say? How might listeners who don’t have a choice whether to listen react to the authority of a public musical instrument that necessarily has opinions? Who is the carillon?
Sixteen students are presently enrolled in the carillon studio at the University of Michigan, drawing from various academic disciplines across the university. The University of Michigan boasts two carillons—the Charles Baird Carillon of Burton Memorial Tower, containing fifty-three bronze bells cast by John Taylor & Co. in Loughborough, England, and the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Carillon of Lurie Tower, built in 1996, containing sixty bells cast by the Royal Eijsbouts bell foundry of Asten, the Netherlands.
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