Free. Free Parking in the lot in front of the tower on Euclid Avenue also along Bellflower Rd behind the tower, a great place to hear the concert.
Attending in person:
You can also tune in on your computer, tablet, or smart phone through our YouTube channel to watch the concert at 4pm
Dr. Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra, Carillonist
View the Live Stream
Carillons serve as timekeepers and messengers, alerting communities of funerals, weddings, services, and events. As public instruments, carillons can also bring together communities in times of struggles and celebrations. This program honors the manifold ways in which the McGaffin Carillon lifts up the Cleveland community.
HEALING: BUILDING COMMUNITY AMIDST THE PANDEMIC
Healing Bells
Jet Schouten & Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra
When the pandemic shutdown was announced in March 2020, Dutch journalist Jet Schouten and I collaborated to compose “Healing Bells.” During the Black Plague, people believed that bells had healing properties. We arranged the Ukrainian lament “Plyve Kacha” in juxtaposition to “Viral Spirals,” which represented the virus. Gradually, the music of the lament overcomes the viral theme. This piece weeps for the suffering and loss of the pandemic, and stands up against social viruses such as anti-Asian hate speech and actions, homophobia, racism, and misogyny. On May 21, 2020, the UNESCO World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development, carillonists from six continents co-premiered “Healing Bells,” in community-building performances.
A HYMN TO HONOR the McGAFFIN CARILLON’S HOME at
THE CHURCH OF THE COVENANT
Old Style Variations on “Kingsfold”
Geert D’hollander b. 1965
I. Hymn
II. Siciliana
III. A Funny Interlude
V. Ayre
The tune “Kingsfold” might date back to the Middle Ages, according to some hymn scholars. Currently, the tune is featured in 24 hymnals, most often set to the texts “Oh sing a song of Bethlehem” and “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say.” Belgian-American composer Geert D’hollander was first prizewinner in more than 30 international competitions. He serves as Bok Tower Gardens’ (Florida) carillonneur and concertizes worldwide.
CELEBRATING GIFTS FROM BLACK, INDIGENOUS, ASIAN, & LATINA/O PEOPLE IN CLEVELAND
“Go Down, Moses”
“Sometimes I feel like a motherless child”
African American spirituals
from Global Rings
arr. Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra
“Go Down, Moses” likely originated as a collaborative creation of agency by enslaved people, who drew a parallel to the Exodus passage in which Israelites tell Moses to tell Pharaoh to release them. Harriet Tubman, an Underground Railroad “conductor,” used “Go Down, Moses” as a signal to enslaved people whom she helped to escape. Also stemming from enslavement, when African people were torn away from their homeland to arrive in a country where African children were torn away from their parents, “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child” remains relevant in the long aftermath of systemic racism and inequity and at the borders today. Starting with Jubilee Singers, who performed this spiritual in the 1870s, “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child” has been widely performed and recorded by artists from Louis Armstrong to Mahalia Jackson, Ike and Tina Turner, Marion Anderson, Wynton Marsalis, and many more.
The Music of March: A Civil Rights Carillon Collection
ed. Tiffany Ng
Editor Dr. Tiffany Ng, University of Michigan Carillonist and Carillon Professor writes,
“In the award-winning March nonfiction graphic novels by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell, music is depicted as a powerful force in the major nonviolent resistance actions organized by Lewis and fellow Civil Rights Movement leaders.”
Ng and other women composers arranged carillon works for this collection to urge the public to action to stand up against racism and injustices, and for use at community gatherings such as U-M’s MLK Symposium.
Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ‘Round
Traditional, arr. Jen Wang
Freedom is a Constant Struggle
Roberta Slavit, arr. Yvette Janine Jackson
Woke Up This Morning With My Mind on Freedom
Traditional, arr. Tiffany Ng
Right! Right!
Len Chandler, arr. Jen Wang
Shengshui Lament
Linda Dzuris (b. 1970)
“Taiyi Shenghui” is a Chu text from ca. 300 BCE written as states were at war. The text is based on the Taoist creation myth: “The Great One Gave Birth to Water. Water Returned and Assisted the Great One.” Dr. Linda Dzuris is University Carillonneur and Professor of Music at Clemson University.
Sae Ta Ryung Variations
Traditional Korean
Parang-Sae Toccata
from Global Rings arr. HyoJin Jenna Moon
A beloved Korean folk tune, “Sae-Ta Ryung” features onomatopoeic sounds of birds, including distinctive sounds of cuckoos, peacocks, parrots, and pheasants. “Pa Rang-Sae” is a popular Korean children’s tune, which is thought to refer to General Bong-Joon Juhn, who led a peasant revolution in the late 19th century.
Chekabaytebik an dahndayahn
Traditional Ojibwe
from Global Rings arr. Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra
The Ojibwe (or Chippewa) people are First People of the northern midwestern US and Canada. Among the gifts the Ojibwe bring to the world are earth care, written and oral herstories, brilliant and practical geometry, mathematics, and maps, profound memories and legends, copperworks, maple syrup and wild rice, birch bark scrolls and canoes, and beautiful songs, such as “Chekabytebik” about being out on the river all night.
La Purísima
Traditional Nicaraguan
from Global Rings arr. Halla Kabat
At the end of November, Nicaraguans celebrate the conception of Mary with “La Purísima, ” nine days of prayers, singing, and building home altars. The culmination of “La Purísima” is “La Gritería,” in which people process and shout a call and response about their joy over Mary’s conception of the Christ-child.
The Girl from Ipanema
Antonio Carlos Jobim
from Three Jazz Standards arr. Joey Brink
“Garota de Panema” is a Brazilian bossa nova and jazz song popular in the 60s, when it won a Grammy award. Joey Brink is the University Carillonist at the University of Chicago, where he plays and teaches 20 students on the 72-bell Rockefeller Memorial Carillon.
HEALING: to HONOR McGAFFIN CARILLON’S POSITION,
across the street from the SEIDMAN CANCER CENTER
Healing Hands
Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra
“Healing Hands,” the first-prize winner of the Mayo Clinic carillon competition, is based on a poem I wrote that details the myriad ways in which health care workers, such as those at University Hospitals, and the Cleveland Clinic, contribute to wellbeing. Several of the references are based on real-life experiences.
Amidst beeping monitors and weeping incisions,
Nurses listen for the one who needs first attention.
As life begins
and as life ends–
They hold each tiny, rough, and IV’d hand–
And whisper, “I’m here, dear one, I understand.”
Cooks prepare meals for people they don’t see,
But as their hands chop and purée,
they chant and sway,
Humming tunes they sing for loved ones far away.
Custodians clean,
often unseen,
But they see you, and find your mom’s sweater.
They give it back. They make your life better.
Surgeons stay focused as they stand,
While their gloved and sterilized hands
remove tumors and tonsils,
fluids and cataracts.
Translators ensure that each family understands
What is happening with their loved one;
What unfolds from those healing hands.
Volunteers greet,
Strangers meet,
Radiologists read X-rays,
bells ring, musicians play…
Each–
Yes, all of them–
Healing hands at Mayo.
[and in Cleveland!]
©Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra, https://pamelaruiterfeenstra.com, 2021
ABOUT THE PERFORMER
A GRAMMY-nominated international improviser and performer on organ, harpsichord, clavichord, piano, and carillon; a pedagogue, prize-winning composer; and guest conductor; Dr. Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra is composer of nearly 200 works, recording artist of 5 CDs and numerous online audio and video recordings, and author of seven books: the acclaimed Bach and the Art of Improvisation, (2 vols.), her Muse series (4 vols.), and Global Rings, a collaborative DEI initiative with the U-M Carillon Studio to diversify carillon repertoire. Ruiter-Feenstra served as Senior Researcher at the Göteborg Organ Art Center in Sweden; Professor, University Organist, and Director of the Collegium Music at Eastern Michigan University; and Adelia Larson Fury Distinguished Professor of Music at Bethany College. A strong diversity, equity, and inclusion advocate, Ruiter-Feenstra devotes much of her current research and compositions to social justice arts initiatives. She is founding organizer and composer-performer for Collaborative Investigative Composing (CIC), in which award-winning journalists, filmmakers, and composers collaborate to tell underreported stories of social injustices via music and film. Our projects include inequities Mexican immigrants experience, humanitarian crises in Venezuela, democracy dismantled in Belarus, grave misogyny in Mexico, the aftermath of gun violence in the U.S., and community-building artistic responses to the pandemic. See http://pamelaruiterfeenstra.com/investigative-composing, https://youtu.be/QxdEZmbpHvM and https://youtu.be/0y4if7653kg.
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