Indiana University

School of Music Carillon

Links to Carillon Inventories
GCNA	Tower Bells	Bok Tower Gardens

The Arthur R. Metz Foundation funding two Eijsbouts carillons on the campus. The School of Music carillon had 42 bells and was installed on top of the School of Music Annex in 1971.

The carillon was rebuilt in 2001 and five more bells were added. No picture has been found showing the carillon installed on the roof of the Music Annex.

References
1982 Indiana University School of Music, the Bain regime, 1947-1973, by Wilfred Conwell Bain
Pages 1081-1084: Carillons

2006 Time takes toll on IU's bells, January 2, 2006, The Herald-Times.
On a recent morning, Neil Thornock headed to a tiny fifth-floor room at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music to demonstrate his mastery of the carillon. The instrument's bells, in a series of sizes, sit high on a section of roof one needs a ladder to access. Thornock sat down, as if at a piano, and pounded his fists on long wooden keys, while pushing floor-level keys with his feet. "It requires a great deal of energy. The action is entirely mechanical," he explained in an e-mail. "Thus, to get a lever to move a ball of metal weighing a few hundred pounds takes a fair bit of muscle."Outside in the frigid air, chimes could be heard from the rusty cup-shaped bells.A carillon is a keyboard-based instrument composed of at least 23 bells. It's generally regarded as a folk instrument, often played in churches or at school - sometimes in parks - to provide people with pleasant background music while they are outdoors. IU is home to two such instruments, and a traditional chime comprising 14 bells is in the Student Building. The larger of the carillons is the Arthur R. Metz Memorial Carillon on 17th Street, across from Jordan Avenue. It has 61 bells. A smaller carillon with 42 bells sits atop the round Music Annex behind the Simon Center. But to hear one played would take a stroke of luck: Thornock is the only IU student qualified to play the carillon. Being a carillonneur is a rarity because the instrument is so expensive; not many exist in the United States, and there's a limited repertoire for it.The 28-year-old doctoral student in composition began learning the carillon as a secondary instrument while pursuing his undergraduate degree in organ at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He usually plays recitals at the Metz carillon. "It requires dramatic movement of every part of the body to play it, and the thrill of physically dominating 20 tons of metal was something I looked forward to with each piece I learned," he elaborated in the e-mail.Future up in the air Both IU carillons were built in the early 1970s. At a dedication ceremony, former university president Herman B Wells called them "the fulfillment of a longtime dream." It was Wells who brought them to IU, said John Gouwens, a carillonneur and organist at Culver Academy in Culver, Ind., who studied and played the instrument at IU from 1976 to 1983. But since the erection of the carillons, their fate has been uncertain. IU initially recruited a carillonneur from the Netherlands named Arie Abbenes to play the instruments regularly, and he did so daily until he left his job a year later, Gouwens said in a recent telephone call. A few of Abbenes' students continued to play weekly for a time, and Gouwens learned from one such former student."It greatly exceeded my expectations," Gouwens said. "I always liked the sound. It's touch sensitive the way a piano is, but you can hear it three miles away." Today, the carillons are in bad shape, in part because of exposure to the elements. "On both carillons, the bolts are so rusted, you can't take (one) out without cutting it, breaking it off," Gouwens said.To fix the bolts adequately, one would have to disassemble other parts and replace them. And talk of tearing down the Music Annex and periods of limited cash flow have prevented the school from making a definite decision about how to deal with the issue, Gouwens said. Alain Barker, director of marketing and publicity for the Jacobs School of Music, said the damage to the carillons is from "normal wear and tear," and that the Metz carillon is in better condition than the Music Annex carillon. Students can play the Metz carillon if they want, he continued, but there consistently have been so few students who know how - one or two every few years - that upkeep hasn't been a high priority.Barker said the school is dedicated to the carillon tradition at IU, and while plans for redeveloping the music school area of campus within the next 10 years include demolishing the round Music Annex building, its carillon will most likely be replaced by the Metz carillon. Thornock has no concerts planned for the IU carillons in the immediate future. Gouwens, who follows the state of the carillons closely from Culver, has returned to Bloomington for the occasional recital and is looking forward to the carillon improvements in the future."They need an awful lot of work," Gouwens said.

2021 Music Annex Carillon Receives a Face Lift, April 1, 2020