Carillons: From Harkness Tower to Burton Memorial Tower

Join AAAYA and the Yale Club of San Francisco for their rendition of “College

Tea” by the Bay with Professor Tiffany Ng (TD ’05, Ph.D. Musicology, New Music UC Berkeley

’15) who will introduce you to the world of carillon music and the innovative paths she has

taken this Old World instrument into contemporary settings.

Tiffany Ng is Associate Professor of Carillon and University Carillonist at the University of

Michigan, Ann Arbor. She has been an energetic advocate of diversity in contemporary music.

Among other things she has premiered or revived over sixty pieces by emerging and established

composers, pioneered interactive “crowdsourced” carillon performances, and devised

environmental-data-driven sound installations. Besides her teaching, performance, scholarship

and service at U-M, which was recognized when she won the Shirley Verrett Award, her concert

career has taken her to festivals in fifteen countries in Europe, Asia, Australia, and North

America.

Unlike most other musical instruments, the chimes of carillons are not confined to performance

halls, but are heard throughout a town, a plaza, a campus. What images and memories are

conjured when you hear carillons? Do you remember when you first heard the bells from

Harkness Tower? Some say its music harkens to idyllic campuses of learning. Be they Harkness

Tower, Cal Berkeley’s Sather Tower or University of Michigan’s Burton Memorial Tower, the

towering soundscapes contribute to the personal sense of place along with the architecture.

RSVP to wayne.lew@aaaya.org.