Grand Valley State University has selected a new carillonneur for the Cook and Beckering Family Carillon Towers.
The towers’ stature and sounds have impressed students and faculty alike for over 30 years. Their charm will now be under the guidance of Jon Lehrer, a carillonneur with past experience at Michigan State University.
Lehrer is an avid practitioner and promoter of carillon sounds. He has 20 years of acclaimed experience with carillon music throughout North America and Europe, with over 500 solo performances. Lehrer came to the University’s attention during a search by administrators for a carillonneur to take the reins. He was introduced to the GVSU community at a special event June 10, celebrating the Cook Carillon Tower’s 30th anniversary.
For Lehrer, the size and unique nature of the massive musical instrument makes his new job both a large responsibility and public duty.
“To me, it’s about using the institutional resource of a carillon to enrich community life and wellbeing,” Lehrer said. “That’s why it’s there. It’s a musical instrument so you have to play musically of course, but because it’s inescapably public, it challenges us to think about the people we serve and what we can offer through music in the campus setting.”
For Lehrer, the opportunity to utilize yet another new carillon to perform for the public is an exciting one. He explained that one of the instrument’s strengths is that each carillon is so different, on top of carillons occupying a unique space compared to other instruments.
“Musically, a vibrating surface is harmonically different from the varieties of strings and tubes we’re used to hearing, so it can sound unfamiliar, occasionally even wonky at first,” Lehrer said. “Harmonies that sound good on a piano or guitar might not sound as good on a carillon, though if you follow strengths, some harmonies will sound better on carillons, opening up new creative space for composers to explore.”
The lineage of the carillon goes back quite a ways, situated between the creation of the harpsichord and piano. Lehrer described the carillon as the “world’s first musical mass medium,” since it can be heard so widely.
Despite being integrated into European cities, the carillon was only introduced to college campuses in the last century. Lehrer said there are only around 60 universities with live carillons. However, GVSU and other universities in Michigan occupy a unique space that he looks forward to promoting in his new role.
“Michigan is one of the best places in the U.S. for carillon,” Lehrer said. “We have 14 of them within a 90 minute radius, and GVSU is one of only three institutions in North America that is home to multiple carillons. It would not be too difficult to make the entire state a center of carillon learning in North America, and potentially on the global level too.”
While most students have heard the towers’ bells before, they may have overlooked the unique kind of music that rings out, and the large instruments resting inside the brick walls.
“I realize that (a clock) is the most common descriptor, but to me, Cook Carillon Tower is a clock tower in the same sense that your laptop is a calculator,” Lehrer said. “Sure, it can do that (tell time), but it’s one of the least exciting parts.”
Lehrer added that he intends to make his time at GVSU both memorable and harmonious.
“Human music in the public sphere makes us individually and communally happier and healthier,” Lehrer said. “I intend that in the years to come, the GVSU community will not hear this so much as a flowery, idealistic statement, but as a lived and felt experience.”
