Joey Brink is the sixth University carillonneur at the University of Chicago, where he performs daily on the seventy-two bell Rockefeller Memorial Carillon and directs the University of Chicago Guild of Carillonneurs. He serves on the board of the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America, co-chairing the Johan Franco composition committee. Brink began his carillon studies with Ellen Dickinson in 2007, as an undergraduate at Yale University; graduated from the Royal Carillon School in Mechelen, Belgium in 2012; and studied further with Geert d’Hollander at Bok Tower Gardens in 2015. In 2014, he became the first American to receive first prize at the International Queen Fabiola Carillon Competition, in Mechelen. He is a noted composer of music for carillon, and works with graduate composition students in the University of Chicago’s Department of Music, under the direction of Augusta Read Thomas, introducing them to the art of composing for the bells. Rockefeller Chapel is the ceremonial and spiritual center of the University of Chicago, and a major performing arts destination. A leading venue for choral, organ, and carillon studies and performance, the Chapel is known for commissioning and promoting new music. The Ear Taxi Festival, a Chicago-wide festival of new music spearheaded by Augusta Read Thomas, featured fifty-three world premières over five days. Joey Brink’s performance of three world premières (tracks 12, 13, and 14) on the carillon brought large crowds of Ear Taxi Festival enthusiasts to the University of Chicago’s Rockefeller Chapel as part of the festival. Recording engineer Christopher Willis recorded this CD by blending six microphones: two heavily wind-screened stereo microphones positioned outside among the birds and the trees, and four pressure-zone microphones spaced throughout the belfry. Recording sessions took place in the summer of 2016, on afternoons and evenings as Chicago weather permitted. He sought to minimize background noise, though the sounds of planes, cars, and people are unavoidable when recording outdoors in an urban setting. This CD in fact replicates the ambience of listening to the University of Chicago’s beloved bells from the vicinity of the Chapel. Throughout the year, the sound of birdsong mingles with the bells, and we have joyously kept birdsong in the mix, to capture faithfully the ambience of listening on a summer evening. On this recording, you can hear the songs of American robins and goldfinches, and also cicadas and crickets. In the words of Christopher Willis, “Each piece is different sonically. There’s nineteenth century romanticism with the birds, sinister creepiness with the cicadas, and the magic of midsummer nights with the crickets.” We are grateful to Alan Anderson and David Willard of the Chicago Audubon Society for their assistance in identifying the birds. Thanks are also due to all who offered assistance in piecing together the musical history, especially Easley Blackwood, Koen Cosaert, Wylie Crawford, Dennis Curry, Jaime Fogel (and the Anton Brees Carillon Library at Bok Tower Gardens), John Gouwens, and Roy Hamlin Johnson. Recorded at Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, June–August 2016 Christopher Willis, Recording Engineer Elizabeth Davenport, Project Director Published and produced by Rockefeller Memorial Chapel 5850 South Woodlawn Avenue Chicago, IL 60637 Elizabeth J. L. Davenport, Dean rockefeller.uchicago.edu Program and Historical Notes I Early Years The Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Carillon at the University of Chicago and its sister instrument at Riverside Church in New York City, both dating from the early 1930s, were the masterworks of the Gillett & Johnston bell foundry of Croydon, England. Carillons of this size had never before been made, and have not been made again since that time. The two instruments are the largest musical instruments of any kind ever built. The Chicago carillon, comprising seventy-two bells and one hundred tons of bronze, was cast over a three year period and include a massive 18 .5 ton bourdon sounding a low C#, today still the third largest tuned bell in the world. The carillon was installed during the summer of 1932, a year after the New York instrument had been expanded to its final size, and was dedicated at Thanksgiving of that year by Kamiel Lefévere, carillonneur at Riverside Church and a native of Mechelen, Belgium—the heart of today’s carillon world. Upon installation of the instrument, Frederick Marriott, organist at Rockefeller Chapel, became the first University of Chicago carillonneur, a position he held for twenty-one years (1932–53). In the summer of 1936, Marriott enrolled in the Royal Carillon School in Mechelen, where he studied for three months with carillon masters Jef Denyn and Staf Nees. At his final exam on the carillon of St .Rombout’s Cathedral, Marriott performed his own composition, Chanson sérieuse, a piece he wrote while studying at the school and dedicated to Denyn. Upon returning to Chicago, the student newspaper Daily Maroon of October 1, 1936, noted: “As a last number on his next Sunday Program at the University, Marriott will present to the Chapel audience the original composition which helped merit the unique award of the Diploma of Grande Distinction.” The piece is an exemplary product of the Mechelen romantic style, with plenty of tremolando, diminished sevenths, dramatic flourishes, and a descending chromatic scale to top it off. When Marriott stepped down in 1953, James R. Lawson, Marriott’s pupil (1937–41), was appointed as Rockefeller Chapel’s second carillonneur. Like his teacher, Lawson had also studied at the Mechelen school, receiving his degree in 1949. While in Belgium, he composed several pieces for carillon, including Elegie, a romantic piece that he dedicated to Guido Peeters, son of the famous organist Flor Peeters of St. Rombout’s Cathedral. Still presiding over the New York City carillon, Kamiel Lefévere received a commission in 1954 from Lawson, for which he composed The University of Chicago Suite. The piece was premiered by Lawson on July 25, 1954. Lefévere’s suite is composed in the Mechelen romantic style, with clear inspiration from Denyn and Nees. The University of Chicago Chime was one of a dozen chimes written by Johan Franco for North America’s most prominent carillons, in this case composed for and dedicated to James Lawson in 1959. One of the most prolific carillon composers of the twentieth century, Franco wrote hundreds of works for carillon, as well as sonatas, symphonies, chamber works, and theatre scores. Born in Holland, he grew up in Evanston, Illinois, and received his first musical training at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, where he played the nine-bell chime each Sunday. II The Daniel Robins Era In 1960, James Lawson was called to succeed Kamiel Lefévere as carillonneur at Riverside Church, and prodigious performer Daniel Robins was appointed third University carillonneur at the University of Chicago. Born in Eureka, Kansas, Robins had begun his carillon studies at the University of Kansas under Ronald Barnes, and in 1960 he became the first North American to graduate from the new Dutch carillon school in Amersfoort, where he studied with Leen ‘t Hart. At Amersfoort, he composed his Five Short Pieces for carillon, which he performed in 1961 at his examination recital for the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America. Published the following year, the pieces received negative review due to their difficulty and “modern” quality and were removed from publication for nearly forty years. Short Piece No. 2 experiments with whimsically contrapuntal minor and major intervals, in both slow and fast sections. Driven to establish the carillon as a concert instrument among contemporary musicians and composers, Robins refused to perform arrangements of popular classics and folk tunes. Rather, his allure for complex and challenging music led him to commission numerous composers to write for the carillon, at times asking that composers write music so difficult that only he could play it. One of his earliest and most impactful commissions, Chaconne for Carillon by Easley Blackwood, was selected for the GCNA’s 1980s cassette recording, Milestones of North American Carillon Composition. Blackwood remains to this day Professor Emeritus of Music at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1958. His Chaconne contains sixteen variations on a theme, and has only been performed by a handful of carillonneurs since its completion in 1961, in part due to its difficulty and atonal quality. Blackwood recalls laughing with Robins as he jumped off the carillon bench in order to play twelve-note chords in the piece. Less than a year after Blackwood wrote his Chaconne, Robins commissioned Roy Hamlin Johnson to compose Fantasy for Carillon. Like Robins, Johnson had become acquainted with the carillon at the University of Kansas in the 1950s, where he had worked with famed carillon composer and performer Ronald Barnes; he would go on to be widely recognized for his groundbreaking compositional output for carillon, named as an honorary member of the GCNA in 1991 and receiving an honorary doctorate from the University of Michigan in 1992. Recalling a phone call with Robins in 1962, when he received the $50 commission, Johnson remembers that Robins’ prodigious technique provided an open door—and that he therefore chose a musical rather than technical approach. The piece builds from a moderate and mysterious octatonic melody, growing ever faster and more formidable until changing key at the climax, then recalling and inverting the opening theme. Robins is believed never to have played the piece. Emilien Allard, like Johnson, was a noted figure in twentieth century North American carillon composition. A native of Montréal, he was carillonneur at St. Joseph’s Oratory from 1956 to 1975, and became Dominion Carillonneur of the Peace Tower on Ottawa’s Parliament Hill from 1975 until his death in 1976. A graduate of the Mechelen Carillon School, Allard composed more than fifty pieces for carillon, including a set of poèmes for North America’s many notable carillons. His Poème pour Chicago, like his other poèmes, is not at all in the Mechelen romantic style, but is more impressionistic. The piece is composed around a twelve tone atonal structure and was dedicated to his dear friend (à mon cher ami) Daniel Robins. Over the course of Daniel Robins’ nine years at Rockefeller, his extravagant tastes for grandiose programming became quite celebrated. His annual April Fool’s Day gala concerts were a spectacle to behold, combining carillon with synthesizer, calliope, harpsichord, and even fireworks. But his exorbitant spending on these events led to his storied occupancy in a makeshift apartment in the basement of Rockefeller Chapel, and ultimately to his departure from the Chapel in 1969. He died tragically just a few months later. For the next fifteen years, Robert Lodine assumed the role of University carillonneur, and in that time served as president of the GCNA (1975–77). In addition to his recitals on the Rockefeller carillon, Lodine was professor of music at the American Conservatory of Music, and carillonneur, organist, and choirmaster at St. Chrysostom’s Episcopal Church in Chicago. III Restoration Succeeding Lodine, Wylie Crawford became the fifth University carillonneur in 1984. As a student in physics education at the University of Chicago in the 1960s, Crawford recalls witnessing one of Robins’ great spectacles, where he found “the bell tower playing along with a mobile carillon that was mounted on a truck, a compressed-air calliope, and rows of tubas that were blasting Wagner.” Knowing that he had to learn to play the bells, but realizing that Robins had no interest in taking on students, Crawford taught himself on the practice keyboard in Robins’ apartment in the Rockefeller catacombs. One Saturday evening, Robins called Crawford to say that he had just had “one heck of a great night” but would not be able to play the next morning and asked Crawford to play in his stead. Forty-two years later to the day, in 2015, Crawford retired as Rockefeller’s longest serving carillonneur. Among other notable accomplishments in the carillon world, Crawford spearheaded the restoration of the Rockefeller carillon (2006–08). After seventy- five years, the carillon was in need of major work, and Crawford worked with Royal Eijsbouts in The Netherlands to retune forty-six of the bells, rehang and provide new clappers for the upper fifty-eight bells, install a modern transmission mechanism and keyboard, and redesign the playing cabin in the tower. In honor of Crawford’s fortieth year at Rockefeller, and to mark the fiftieth season of The Bells of Summer concert series, in which guest carillonneurs from all over the world perform on the instrument, Rockefeller Chapel commissioned John Gouwens to write a celebratory piece for the carillon. Gouwens, academy organist and carillonneur at the Culver Academies since 1980, is on the faculty of the North American Carillon School, has authored two books for carillon education, and has composed dozens of works for carillon. Gouwens’ Flourish, Chorale, and Toccata is the first piece written for the University of Chicago instrument that utilizes the entire range of its seventy-two bells. The Flourish opens with a fanfare reminiscent of Aaron Copland’s music; the Chorale is a presentation and variation on the Alleluia for the Roman Catholic Feast of the Dedication; and the Toccata begins with a transitional passage made up of arpeggio patterns as found in Messiaen’s fourth Mode of Limited Transposition. A prominent element in the piece is the Parsifal chime, which was programmed into the clock’s sounding at Rockefeller in its earliest years. IV Ear Taxi Festival Joey Brink was appointed the sixth University carillonneur at the University of Chicago in 2015, with Elizabeth Davenport, dean of Rockefeller Chapel, restoring the role to a full time position for the first time since Daniel Robins’ departure in 1969. Upon Brink’s arrival, University Professor Augusta Read Thomas invited him to perform at the 2016 Ear Taxi Festival. On Brink’s festival recital program on October 6, 2016, he premiered the works by Iddo Aharony and Tomás I. Gueglio Saccone, and his own composition, that form tracks 12 through 14. Of ...the way nets cannot hold water, Aharony cites Pablo Neruda as his inspiration, in words from Veinte Poemas de Amor (Twenty Love Poems): “‘Something with the wings of a bird, something of anguish and oblivion. The way nets cannot hold water.’ How do you measure what is lost? Between thought and expression, between a moment and its memory, between a memory and its disintegration. Those constant, everyday losses. How do you not measure them? Or, between the sound of a bell and its reverberations, never grasped, always fading away. Can a memory fly? Can a bell?” Of his work Invention—An Ascent, Gueglio Saccone says: “Invention... is centered around two of the carillon’s most salient features: its wide dynamic range and the complexity of its resonance. These two characteristics appeared to be quite suitable to create a kaleidoscopic texture, in which different pitches are repeated at different volumes and, occasionally, in different locations of the instrument. The result is a floating cloud / bubble / fog? of sound out of which moments of songlike melody emerge.” Letters from the Sky is Joey Brink’s tenth work for solo carillon and his first for the grand seventy-two bell Rockefeller Memorial Carillon at the University of Chicago. The piece consists of several short movements of diverse harmonic and rhythmic structure, and is inspired by the unusually disconnected relationship between audience and performer. Unlike a concert hall, the bell tower renders carillonneur and listener apart and often anonymous from one another. The tower itself becomes the artist. And when the tower is out of view or out of mind, it is not the carillonneur or the tower that speaks, but the sky, sending letters to all who listen.