The 2014 International Carillon Festival, themed "New Music on Old Bells," brought together performers from the U.S., Belgium, and Poland and to feature new music for carillon.

22nd International Carillon Festival, Bok Tower Gardens

New music for twenty-first century carillons and organs

New music for carillon & organ

Electroacoustic carillon music

Carillon music by women composers

"Lullaby" from "Kaleidoscope" by Joey Brink, commissioned for the 50th Anniversary of the Yale Memorial Carillon in June 2016.

This recording is dedicated to little Torin in Massachusetts.

Recorded October 14, 2021 on the Charles Baird Carillon.

Joey Brink's "Lullaby"

Performer: Tiffany Ng

The five brief movements of Jung Sun Kang's "The Carillonneur," in the form of a Mass, are each generated from a three-note chromatic motif.The final Credo brings the piece to an end with startling physical and rhythmic intensity. Kang took inspiration from Rochester-based poet Nicholas Hogan’s reminiscence on his visit to the carillon of the University of Rochester with Tiffany Ng.

The Carillonneur
Nicholas Hogan

I. Introit
When the sound arrives
merry and dancing, and
laughing bronze gods 
boom in time
across quadrangles verdant 
ringed with austere oak 
and academic brick

do you look up in wonder?
Imagine, can you,
the fists of these deities
striking music
off of mountains? Or 
is it the simple surprise
of this pealing surpassing
Westminster's quartered charms?
It is more.

Come see it with me.
This is how it begins.

II. Gradual
Through library lobby
over the flying geese of the stone floor
past the quiescent stacks
the carillonneur rides upwards
leaving all the words below

Her muscled forearms yank 
the elevator cage aside
metallic clash of the old Otis elevator gate
echoes in the hollowed bell tower,
a precursor.

More steps rise ahead, girders support 
her solitary climb, 
two flights up, close now to cupola
wire mesh to either side. 
In a graffiti-tagged plywood wall 
a door.
Feel, anticipation.


III. Kyrie
The lock undone, as door swings open 
eye seeks instrument, supposing polished wood
finds instead angled steel, tungsten line, 
bolt and eyelet, wires traveling upwards
turnbuckles tight, florescent lights 
and then, as you focus,
the oaken polished keys
grain exposed, the pegs
taper, extend toward you, 
hinting at infinity and the octatonic wonders
that are here, latent, awaiting touch and tread.

She slips off daily shoes,
dons slippers embroidered 
with stitching you will never see. 
She sits a moment arranging pages,
and then, after breathing,
only then, and for you
she reaches out so tenderly
with curved hands, almost fisted
to stroke the polished fine-grained
oaken pegs and pull the wires down
draw the clappers in
and ring, and ring, and ring, and ring, the bells.

IV. Gloria
Feet flow over the pedals
as across the lawn
under the eaves
the sound of petals floats
lingering in ringing air

final chills of winter
chased away by chimes

above the upturned faces
eyes abstracted, all in-focused
legs reach akimbo, fists and flat hands
caress the aged wood

bronzed beauty rings
unseen, the carillon


V. Credo Percussum
Outside you hear the ringing of the singing-out bells
But inside at the heart of things another thing is happening
Here in the dome high up the carillonneur thumps and thumps
Oak smooth felt feeling thump echo chimes bellow
and pound sing around ring the fisted feelings ding
gently sound ting out th-thump ting-tang th-thump wires pull chimes abound
eighth notes crash bong ring strong sixteenths change, chime, ding and 
change-ring, ears fill with sounds until no wait
th-thump and ring, fists slowly ring th-thump and ching
carillonneur eases slows and now below as people breathe
percussive oaken echoes ease inside
as music settles, comes to ringing
simmering, shimmering smile-bringing end, and feet
and fists unclench, breathe, 
are still as unrung bells 
that settle into dusk's light
and her gentle harmonic embrace.

Kang and Hogan's "The Carillonneur"

Performer: Tiffany Ng

Jeffrey Treviño gave "Moses All" its tongue-in-cheek name after noticing that a sign on UC Berkeley’s philosophy building, Moses Hall, was missing its ‘H.’ His compositional technique comprises division variation of a cantus firmus and then of its inversion, ornamented with harmonies from his composition "Enfilade."

Jeffrey R. Treviño's "Moses All"

Kevin Ernste wrote "Tocsin" for the chime of Cornell University, employing optional loudspeakers and digital processing for spatial effects. The unusual notation presents the carillonneur with boxed groups of notes. Within each box, she may play the notes in any order, speed, and volume, with the goal of making the improvised performance sound “like bells from many towers, near and distant.”

Kevin Ernste's "Tocsin"

Performer: Tiffany Ng

Jay Cloidt’s piece for carillon and electronics, "One Fell Swoop," is written specifically for the 60-bell Bok Tower carillon plus amplified electronic sounds that subtly modify the timbres of those bells. It was premiered by Tiffany Ng during the 2014 International Carillon Festival using the tower's array of sixteen loudspeakers. Please note that this track is documentation of a live concert, and not intended as a hi-fi audio recording.

Jay Cloidt's "One Fell Swoop"

Performer: Tiffany Ng

Listening to Enfilade is like observing a rotating gen that continually changes shape; the same pattern of facets never quite repeats. The piece opens with its main theme, which is then hidden within a series of relentlessly descending harmonies, each unique, that are occasionally punctuated by a sonority so beautiful that it evokes a glimmer in the gem that fades, never be experienced again. The piece may also be heard as very a gradual crescendo. At least, this is the performer’s take on Enfilade, a challenge to a musician’s ability to play unpredictable music while maintaining utmost focus. According to the composer:

“The carillon, in its uncanny resemblance to, or camouflage within, a relatively permanent feature of the built environment, abstains from the embodied temporal contingencies of musical performance. One may not (without tragic difficulty) carry it out onto a stage. This means a performer can’t split a concert space into real and representative spheres via the boundary of an intervening proscenium arch; the carillon is going to be in the real world, and part of it, and if it happens to be in some kind of representative emotional space, this won’t be made obvious by any manner of velvet curtain. Because this makes the framing of an experience with a beginning and an end a bit more difficult than walking into and out of your view, one must resort to, oh, I don’t know, program texts and festival assemblies to re-linearize your attention and to take what is actually a building in the real world and somehow invite it into the representative space of a concert performance. But even once it’s come in, it spikes the punch a bit: who’s making this sound?; what have they done to make it?; how long will it go on?; if it came into earshot, when did it start, and when might it end?; and just where has she gone? It is this peculiar, in-between status that intrigues me most about the carillon.

In architecture, an enfilade is an interconnected group of rooms arranged usually in a row with each room opening into the next. In warfare, an enfilade is gunfire directed from a flanking position along the length of an enemy battle line.

In Enfilade, the second definition yields the first, in cahoots with the liminally instrumental nature of the carillon. If one were to happen upon a performance of the piece—say, in a daily ringing at UC Berkeley, where carillonist Tiffany Ng rehearsed the work—one might regard a perpetual, interconnected succession of chords, seemingly without beginning or end, a music intended to be happened upon and contemplated as an unending series of "openings into," a music entirely uninterested in the notion of a beginning or end, yet obsessed with the arrangement and re-decoration of nearly identical, slightly resized boxes, interconnected in a palpably arbitrary way. In this sense, one would experience the first definition, in the context of a musical language that spikes the representational concert space punch by ignoring its temporal frame, or by treating this frame as a glimpse into an atemporal state of affairs, acknowledged winkingly with a melodic cap. But it is also the case that, were you to see Tiffany Ng playing Enfilade, she would be madly scaling the length of almost the entire instrument from a flanking position, executing each interconnection with attacked, foot-and-fist physicality! An intensely aggressive and temporally contingent act has been concealed, romantically sublimated by architecture, into a music that wants to be structure. In this way, the physical enactment of the second definition enables the experience of the first.”

Jeffrey R. Treviño's "Enfilade"

"Pealing Fire" by renowned American composer Libby Larsen opens joyously, with scalar patterns and tolling. A sudden shift up a tritone leads to the first appearance of the "Veni creator." A playful, syncopated section is followed by a series of brilliant arpeggios, in which the theme is only hinted at, and then a return of some opening material. Swinging bell patterns lead again to the Veni creator, culminating in a descending flourish (with the indication “Wild Tintinnabulation!”). Next follows a lyric presentation of the chant in a gentle waltz rhythm. A section of ringing patterns ensues over the bass pattern G-D-F. Then the Veni creator chant returns, accompanied by fragments of itself and other ringing patterns. The opening few measures appear; a short chant-like phrase and another arpeggiated figure, this time disappearing into the distance as it rises to the high range of the carillon, brings the piece to its sparkling conclusion. (John Gouwens)

Libby Larsen's "Pealing Fire"

Elizabeth Kelly - Chorale

Performer: Tiffany Ng

In 2013, North Korea released its new phone, the Arirang. It is named for the folk song of the same name, well known throughout both North Korea and South Korea. Treviño composed Future Calendars as a prolation canon in three different simultaneous tempi on the theme of Arirang, with the fastest statement in the treble bells and the slowest statement in the bass. The deceptively simple-sounding yet polyphonically complex piece explores what it means for a song with so many meanings to be played on a public instrument.

Jeffrey R. Treviño's "Future Calendars"

Performer: Tiffany Ng

According to Paul Coleman, “Tiffany Sketches is a collection of short pieces that exploit the unique harmonic spectrum of the carillon, for which any notion of traditional consonance and dissonance is problematic.” Some of the most interesting sounds in Tiffany Sketch No. 1 occur in the pauses between the rising phrases, when lingering overtones interact to create a shimmering sonic shadow. In this electroacoustic performance, electronic sounds were played over a sixteen-loudspeaker array using PureData, subtly coloring the sound of Bok Tower's 60-bell carillon. Please note that this track is documentation of a live concert, and not intended as a hi-fi audio recording.

Paul Coleman's "Tiffany Sketches, No. 1"

Jay Cloidt: "CLANGOR + ostinato" was my first attempt to write for the very large and very quirky instrument that is the carillon.  What a beast!  … and what fun!  Many thanks to Tiffany Ng for giving me the opportunity to do so, and for working so hard on the piece (which is not an easy one to play).

2013 update: San Francisco's ODC modern dance ensemble performed Brenda Way's "Lifesaving Maneuvers" at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts to music by Jay Cloidt that included "CLANGOR + ostinato"! See http://vimeo.com/63185738

Jay Cloidt - CLANGOR + ostinato

Performers: Tiffany Ng, Geert D'hollander

"I composed Barber’s Dozen for Tiffany Ng in 2008. It is scored for any combination of acoustic metal instruments (e.g. carillon, steel drum, glockenspiel, hand bells) and a computer that generates synthesized bell sounds. Both the human performers and the computer improvise on their respective instruments, each according to a set of rules. The humans play through a slow series of simple chord changes over the course of the piece, while the computer is programmed with somewhat more complex guidelines for its musical creations. The resulting music is much like a slowly changing landscape, as on a cross-country trip—an outdoor performance with carillon is therefore especially apt. My title Barber’s Dozen refers to my surname and the fact that while the human players have the usual 12 pitches to work with in their improvisations, the computer works with 13 pitches throughout the piece; perhaps a Barber’s Dozen lies somewhere between a regular dozen and a baker’s dozen." -Matthew Barber

Matthew Barber's "Barber's Dozen"

Performer: Tiffany Ng
Recording Engineer: Perrin Meyer

"Fanfare" unfolds with scintillating rhythmic energy. This is composer Andrew Ly’s first work for carillon, commissioned by Ng for her Danish debuts in Aalborg and Copenhagen.

Andrew Ly's "Fanfare"

Performer: Tiffany Ng

"Campanology for Carillon was written for Tiffany Ng. The title of the piece pays homage to Mayuzumi’s Nirvana, a piece based on analysis of bells. Three of the movements in Nirvana are called Campanology. In my personal history, when I think of bells ringing from a tower, I often think first of the bells in the town of Gubbio. The performers swing the bells with their feet, as well as with their whole body." -Ken Ueno

Ken Ueno's "Campanology"

Performer: Tiffany Ng

"When my doctoral advisor, Jorge Liderman, passed away in 2008, I was in residence at Montalvo Art Center. Over the next week, I produced a large number of musical sketches, some of which ended up in my piece Lamento for baritone saxophone which I premiered at that residency. When Tiffany Ng asked me for a carillon piece, it was the perfect opportunity to dig into that same library of material and write a piece for Jorge that would persist on the UC Berkeley campus.

Lamento Segundo is necessarily quite different from the first piece. Carillon is a challenging instrument; the timbre of each bell is individually rich, and has a large effect on the character of any musical gesture. My basic musical material engages the contrast between fluid, expressive music and mechanical, procedural music, a contrast I found to be dramatized by the physical reality of the carillon. Along with a certain terseness, this drama is something I appreciate in Jorge’s music. Although I haven’t attempted to directly mimic his style, he and I had similar interests in this respect."

-Michael Zbyszynski

Michael Zbyszynski's "Lamento Segundo"

Performer: Tiffany Ng

According to Paul Coleman, “Tiffany Sketches is a collection of short pieces that exploit the unique harmonic spectrum of the carillon, for which any notion of traditional consonance and dissonance is problematic.” This is an acoustic version of the final movement, which can optionally be performed with swarm-based live electronics generated in PureData.

Paul Coleman's "Tiffany Sketches No. 4"

Tiffany Ng gives the world premiere of Geert D'hollander's "Andante Lacrimoso" on the C.B. Fisk Organ, op. 83, at Downtown United Presbyterian Church in Rochester, New York.

Recording Engineer: Paul Coleman
Date: April 2008

Tiffany Ng premieres "Andante Lacrimoso" by Geert D'hollander

Performer: Tiffany Ng

"Gears in a clock tower and the paths of stars across the sky both inspired the underlying structure of Fixed Pattern of Distant Stars: cycles of different magnitudes in constant rotation. Each pitch in the piece is assigned to recur regularly after a fixed interval of time, and as the music moves across different registers of the carillon, different rhythmic cycles and relationships between cycles emerge into the foreground. What results are periods of apparent independence and moments of striking coincidence, music that in concept seeks to underscore the connection between the clock tower housing the carillon and the vast space through which the carillon resounds."
- @jenwang

Jen Wang's "Fixed Pattern Of Distant Stars"

Praeludium (1845) for piano by Clara Schumann, performed by Tiffany Ng on the Eijsbouts carillon of the Parochialkirche in Berlin on August 20, 2023 for "100 Jahre Frauen am Glockenspiel".

To purchase the carillon sheet music, visit ACME: https://americancarillonmusiceditions.com/index.php?main_page=product_book_info&cPath=4&prev_page=search&search_in_description=1&keyword=schumann&inc_subcat=0&sort=3a&products_id=693

Clara Schumann's Praeludium (1845) on carillon

"Op Oude Wijze: Preludium" for carillon by Levina Pors, performed by Tiffany Ng on the Eijsbouts carillon of the Parochialkirche in Berlin on August 20, 2023 for "100 Jahre Frauen am Glockenspiel".

To purchase the sheet music, visit Beiaardcentrum Nederland: https://beiaardcentrum.com/en/originele-beiaardmuziek/1420--pdf-pors-levinabr-op-oude-wijze.html

Levina Pors's "Op Oude Wijze: Preludium" on carillon

Taiwanese folk song "Alishan De Gu Niang" [阿里山的姑娘] arranged for carillon by Deanna Shih, performed by Tiffany Ng on the Eijsbouts carillon of the Parochialkirche in Berlin on August 20, 2023 for "100 Jahre Frauen am Glockenspiel".

To purchase the carillon sheet music, visit CHI Press: https://pamelaruiterfeenstra.com/global-rings

"Alishan De Gu Niang" on carillon

Shifa' (2021) for carillon by @Mariam_Soni, performed by Tiffany Ng on the Eijsbouts carillon of the Parochialkirche in Berlin on August 20, 2023 for "100 Jahre Frauen am Glockenspiel".

Download the sheet music for free from the Mayo Clinic: https://tinyurl.com/mrxmepe7

Soni's program notes on "Shifa'":

“Shifa’” is a word derived from Arabic language which translates to “Healing”. It was penned by Ibn Sina, or Avicenna, a Persian Islamic physician and philosopher who was considered to be a founder of early modern medicine and authored Kitāb al-Shifā (The Book of Healing) and Al- Qānūn fī al-Tibb (The Canon of Medicine). He simplistically stated that medicine “is the art whereby health is conserved and the art whereby it is restored after being lost.”

As a medical student, I have been privileged to work with patients and see the direct effects of mind–body relationship such as sensation, perception, and hearing as a source of holistic remedy. The influence of the mind on the body can be seen in voluntary movements, in that the body obeys whenever the mind wishes to move the body. This concept of “Shifa’” allows me to depict some of those encounters that I’ve had with patients during my clinical clerkships.

With this composition, I am trying to convey the philosophy of the power of the mind over the body. Listening intently with the softer background, respecting the patient’s autonomy and privacy, the song builds with its countermelody to transform into the power of the mind overtaking the negative emotions that will eventually work as a catalyst in the entire healing process. I want people to feel connected with themselves, with their healing process, with “Shifa’”, and feel that their voices are heard, their needs met, and their health conserved or restored by their healthcare providers.

Mariam Soni's "Shifa'" for carillon

The 2023 world premiere of composer Zeynep Özcan's "Yörük (Zeybek Rhythms on Bells)" for carillon and electronics.

"Yörük (Zeybek Rhythms on Bells)" uses the carillon's range to mimic traditional Zeybek instruments while incorporating the pulsating 9/8 rhythmic Zeybek dance pattern. In Turkish, 'Yörük' refers to a Turkish ethnic group, mostly known for their nomadic lifestyle. The title highlights the piece's folk influences.

Performer: Tiffany Ng
Instrument: Ann & Robert H. Lurie Carillon, University of Michigan
Sound engineer: Alvin Hill
Recording: Julie Zhu
Occasion: 63rd University of Michigan Organ Conference, "Time Play: Inventing Future Sounds and Scholarship in the Historical Keyboard Realm"

Zeynep Özcan is an electronic music composer, educator, and author. She holds a Ph.D. in Music, an M.A. in History of Architecture, and a B.A. in Philosophy. She explores biologically inspired musical creativity, interactive and immersive environments, and generative systems. Her works have been performed and presented throughout the world in concerts, exhibitions, and conferences. As a musician, she sings, plays piano and electronics and performed with several bands and choirs. She is Assistant Professor of Music in the Department of Performing Arts Technology in the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance. Beyond her university teaching, she contributes to secondary education and community education. She specializes in the implementation of software systems for music-making, audio programming, sonification, sensors and microcontrollers, novel interfaces for musical expression, and large-scale interactive installations. She is passionate about community building and creating multicultural and collaborative learning experiences for students through technology-driven creativity.

Zeynep Özcan's "Yoruk"

My world premiere of Jeff Treviño's "Refrain (To Be Whole)" for solo carillon at the Mayo Clinic Sesquicentennial in September 2014.

Jeff Treviño: "I wrote this piece as I finished eleven months of treatment for colorectal cancer. It responds to the overwhelming desire for personal restoration I felt at this time. Two melodies, one low and one high, circle around a central drone. While the pitches and rhythms of the two melodies distort and then clarify periodically, the rhythm of the central drone, the unrelenting desire to be whole, remains constant throughout."

Jeff Treviño's "Refrain (To Be Whole)"

Field recording of the dawn chorus at the University of Michigan's Stinchfield Woods on March 17, 2024.

Dawn Chorus at University of Michigan Stinchfield Woods

On April 1, 2015, carillonneurs around the world from Australia to the Netherlands performed Cindy Cox’s “Mysterium Coniunctionis” on their towers to jointly celebrate the Campanile’s 100th year at UC Berkeley. The title of the piece references Carl Jung’s last work, about the alchemical union of polar opposites. The piece explores the inherent contradiction of the resonance and dissonance of carillon bells. Its repetitions and swirling melody suggest a ritualistic and spiritual quality. This recording is of Tiffany Ng's premiere at UC Berkeley.

The sheet music is freely downloadable at http://cnmat.berkeley.edu/node/13739

About the Campanile Centennial: http://campanile.berkeley.edu

Photo credit: Michael Pihulic

Cindy Cox's "Mysterium Coniunctionis"

"Great Day (That Great Gittin' Up Mornin')" by Adolphus Hailstork for carillon, commissioned by Charles Semowich and published in 2019 by American Carillon Music Editions.

Score purchase link: https://americancarillonmusiceditions.com/index.php?main_page=product_book_info&cPath=1&prev_page=search&search_in_description=1&keyword=hailstork&inc_subcat=0&sort=3a&products_id=715

Adolphus Hailstork's "Great Day"

Performed by Tiffany Ng on the carillon of the Sint-Servaasbasiliek in Maastricht, the Netherlands.

"I was inspired to write 'Strike and Hum' after I read about carillon bells' unique partials. The strike tone is the initial pitch produced by a bell. The hum tone then becomes perceptible, lying an octave below the strike tone. This piece reflects my ongoing effort to project my fascination with nature and science in a simple but musically interesting way. 'Strike and Hum' is commissioned by, written for, and dedicated to my dear friend Tiffany Ng."

JungSun Kang's "Strike and Hum"

Glass and umbrella are different families of octopodes. Carolyn Chen wrote glass umbrella thinking of their ways of moving and tendency to hide. They lack proprioception (i.e. they cannot really tell where their arms are), yet still manage to crawl, swim, escape, and hunt. Writing originally for toy piano, Chen created a space to hear the instrument’s toy-like nature, its plucked, metallic color, and unique attack envelope. The music starts slowly, like a body learning to sense--which might suit its traveling from toy instrument to the heaviest of acoustic instruments, the carillon. The morphing repetitive patterns evoke the sixteenth-century beginnings of the carillon as a musical automaton, simply telling time and ornamenting that mass dissemination of information with musical patterns repeated throughout the day.

Recorded by Tiffany Ng on the carillon of St. Rombouts Cathedral in Mechelen, Belgium in July 2017.

Carolyn Chen's "glass umbrella"

Jeffrey Treviño's "Organizations (For Cesar Chavez)" consists of a series of polyrhythmic phrases, each in three different, simultaneous tempi, and each at a new set of three tempi. The three tempi are determined from a given phrase’s duration: three different numbers that divide evenly into a given phrase’s duration act as the repeating note durations for three simultaneous voices, each in a different register of the instrument (roughly low, middle, and high). These three durations cycle against each other twice, and, when the three voices coincide rhythmically at the end of the phrase duration for a second time, the phase ends, followed by a silence with a duration equivalent to that of the phrase’s duration. The composition rotates through a dovetailed cycle of scales based on common pitches, pitching each phrase with a new scale. 

The composition does not develop rhetorically or narratively like concert music and does not demand your attention as such. Rather, it should be engaged as a sonic memorial: as a dedicated space for your reflection, contemplation, meditation, recollection, and remembrance, as you find appropriate in your mind.

-- @jefftrevino

Recorded by Tiffany Ng on the carillon of St. Rombout's Cathedral in Mechelen, Belgium in July 2017.

Jeffrey Treviño's "Organizations (For Cesar Chavez)"

@jenwang is a composer, new music advocate, and mother. She composed “Closest” for Tiffany Ng’s 2016 Mother’s Day commissioning project. This gently rhythmic piece evokes the expectant mother’s intimate experience of feeling her baby’s heartbeat speeding and slowing during pregnancy.

Recorded by Tiffany Ng on the carillon of St. Rombout's Cathedral in Mechelen, Belgium in July 2017.

Jen Wang's "Closest"

"dec 24, nearly midnight in honolulu" was inspired by the many Christmas Eves I have spent on the north shore of Kaua’i with my family. This is a rural beach area, often eerily quiet on holidays, and I have often wondered what it would be like to attend a midnight mass near the ocean—what the bells would sound like intermingled with the pounding surf and the wind in the palm fronds, and how the feeling of being in church in Hawai’i would compare with my early childhood memories of attending midnight masses in larger cities on the mainland.

There is another source of inspiration for this piece: the raw emotions and long resonances of Neko Case’s "Nearly Midnight, Honolulu," a haunting track from her 2013 album "The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You."

Honolulu, a major city on O’ahu, is not very far from Kaua’i, and I have spent many nights there as well. This piece is a brief collage of all the feelings I have about Christmas Eve, Neko’s song, and the grandeur and pageantry of church bells from early childhood memories of religious ceremonies. (jenny olivia johnson)

Recorded by Tiffany Ng on the Charles Baird Carillon at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in October 2016.

jenny olivia johnson's "dec 24, nearly midnight in honolulu"

Laura Steenberge's "The Seer" for carillon and electronics, performed by Prof. Tiffany Ng on the Charles Baird Carillon for the 2017 University of Michigan Organ Conference.

"The Seer is both blind to the world and invisible to the world, but she hears all and is heard by all. High in her tower, she weaves space and time together with the vibrations of the ringing bells, telling of what was, what is and what is to come. She sings the song the sirens sang at the edge of the sea so long ago: 'We know all things that come to pass upon the fruitful earth.'" (Laura Steenberge)

University of Michigan 2017 Organ Conference

Laura Steenberge's "The Seer"

North American premiere performed by Tiffany Ng on the Charles Baird Carillon at the 2017 University of Michigan Organ Conference.

“Nihil constat” refers to a saying of Heraclitus of Ephesus, Nihil constat nisi mutatio (the only constant is change), which reflects Johannes Hevelius’s statement, “In water, this flowing matter, there is nothing permanent.” In Gdańsk, this piece is performed with a synchronized fountain show, and these quotes highlight the variability of the fountain’s dance. The themes in the carillon part return multiple times, always slightly altered. In the electronics part, the composer used sounds she recorded and transformed, such as bells, cithar, night and street sounds recorded in Vietnam in 2015, and the Baltic Sea. There are two versions of the piece: a longer one, synchronized with the Hevelius Fountain, and a shorter one, which was premiered at the 2017 World Carillon Congress in Barcelona. Dr. Katarzyna Kwiecień-Długosz chairs the Music Theory Division at the Institute of Music at the University Zielona Góra.

Katarzyna Kwiecien-Dlugosz's "Nihil constat"

In 1737, the mammoth Tsar Bell, created as an expression and symbol of Russian state and industrial power, was irreparably damaged in a fire before it was ever rung. While we now have the digital tools available to create virtual models of the bell’s acoustics, our reconstructions necessarily involve speculation and imagination.

In 2017, lies and falsehoods are a prominent part of our political discourse, often disseminated via data-driven digital advertising and social media. We are confronted with urgent questions about truth and falsehood, fact and fiction, journalism and propaganda.

"Counterfactuals" pairs an imagined digital reconstruction of the Tsar Bell with a real, acoustic carillon in order to invite reflection about truth and falsehood in our present moment. The piece proposes a chain of musical “what-if” scenarios: melodies and textures are proposed, then repeated in dramatically different contexts. Contrapuntal layers proceed in independent tempi, unable to reconcile to a common pulse. Repeating patterns prove unstable, breaking and evolving into unfamiliar forms. The real and the virtual entangle, and fictions abound.

-Christopher Burns
.
.
Performed by Tiffany Ng with the assistance of Brendan McMullen on the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Carillon at the University of Chicago during the 2018 New Carillon Music Festival.

Audio engineer: Christopher Willis

Christopher Burns's "Counterfactuals"

"Pulsar B0329+54" for carillon and electronics by Agnieszka Stulgińska (@agastulginska) has been premiered and performed worldwide by Polish carillonist Monika Kaźmierczak. On October 2, 2018, Tiffany Ng performed the piece on the Charles Baird Carillon for the University of Michigan Organ Conference's meeting "Trailblazers: Women's Impact on the Organ, Harpsichord, Carillon, and Sacred Music."

Agnieszka Stulgińska's "Pulsar B0329+54"

This piece is like looking through a telescope, looking back in time through the expanding universe. As the stars move away from us, their light gets stretched out, shifting into the infrared, becoming obscured. In the first part of the recording, the universe is represented by an excerpt of Laurie Spiegel’s 1980 electronic composition "The Expanding Universe," which plays the part of a ‘photograph’ of the cosmos. As the piece progresses, the sounds are gradually replaced with acoustic instruments—viola da gamba and whirling tubes— that represent the red shift of the light. We can still get a partial picture for a while longer, but the further back in time we look, the more the image fades and eventually all we are left with is the story of the Big Bang, which is represented by a folk melody and the sound of a burning furnace. - Laura Steenberge

Performer: Tiffany Ng
Instrument: Charles Baird Carillon, University of Michigan

Laura Steenberge's "Red Shift"

'Bellarmonic' by @nathan-davis-music for carillon and sampler, performed by Tiffany Ng on the 53-bell Charles Baird Carillon with the assistance of Brendan Kelley, at the International Contemporary Ensemble's "In Plain Air" concert in Hill Auditorium on February 21, 2019.

In Plain Air

Bellarmonic by Nathan Davis

Tiffany Ng gives concerts for cities from the tops of towers. She is University Carillonist and Associate Professor of Carillon at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. An advocate of diversity in contemporary music, she has premiered 60+ pieces by living composers, including works for carillon and live electronics. Her concert career has taken her to fifteen countries in Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America, including the CICO Portugal Festival, the University of Chicago Rockefeller Carillon New Music Festival, Canberra International Carillon Festival, Stanford Live, the International Carillon Festival Barcelona, the Bok Tower International Carillon Festival, and the 2008 Post-Congress Festival of the World Carillon Federation. Tiffany’s research explores the carillon as an instrument of Cold War diplomacy between the Netherlands and America; other research interests include urban soundscapes and classical music in contemporary China. She holds a diploma from the Royal Carillon School “Jef Denyn” where she studied with Geert D’hollander, a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley (Musicology & New Media), a master’s degree from the Eastman School of Music where she studied with William Porter (Organ), and a bachelor’s degree from Yale University (English and Music), where she curated a museum exhibit of bells. She is former Assistant Director of the Women in Music Festival and the Contemporary Organ Music Festival in Rochester, New York, and author of the multimedia catalog of the Municipal Carillon Museum of Mechelen, Belgium.

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