Celebrating a century of song at Norfolk’s Carillon Tower

On June 17, Norfolk County residents will parade to the Carillon Tower in Simcoe for a ceremony that will replicate, as closely as possible, the original dedication in 1925. 

J.P. Antonacci

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Residents of downtown Simcoe were treated to a surprise concert last month when students from Yale University came to town to play the carillon.

The visiting musicians who put the century-old bell tower through its paces were from the Yale Guild of Carillonneurs, whose members perform twice daily on their campus carillon.

“I take my duty of playing on campus very seriously,” said Zoe Pian, a molecular biophysics student from New York City.

“We’re playing music that people hear when they’re walking by, so it’s really important for me to play well and play a variety of music,” added Pian, who especially enjoys being at the keyboard when her fellow Yalies get their diplomas.

“That’s a real cool thing to be the soundtrack to someone’s graduation, so I try to pick pieces that will make people cry,” she said.

The group of 16 students spent their spring break playing 11 carillons in Ontario, Quebec and upstate New York, including at the Cathedral Basilica of Christ the King in Hamilton.

“Which was absolutely lovely. It’s a two-octave carillon, like this one,” said guild member Joey Tan, a computer science student who organized the 10-day tour.

Tan found Simcoe’s carillon listed in an online database and contacted carillonneur Jim Nicholls to arrange a tour after the group visited Niagara Falls.

“It was actually my first time in Canada, and I really enjoyed it,” said Jessica Liu, a chemistry student from North Carolina.

“I really like going around seeing what different bell towers are like. And I’ve enjoyed the sightseeing.”

The guild members took turns at the keyboard, their balled hands hovering over the wooden pegs before striking with a quick flick of the wrist to send the melodic strains of “Danny Boy,” “Amazing Grace” and “Clair de Lune” floating across town.

“I used to be a pianist, so the carillon is a nice way for me to continue having a creative outlet,” said Pian, one of many carillonneurs who transition from tickling the ivories.

“It’s a very public instrument,” math student Ian Haile added from under his Yale ball cap.

“Even if they’re not actively paying attention, I’m playing background music as somebody’s walking to class, and I enjoy having that audience.”

For whom the bells toll

Norfolk’s free-standing carillon is also the county’s war memorial, as the 60-foot limestone tower was built to honour the 250 residents who gave their lives in service of Canada during the Great War.

“That was the idea - every time we hear the bells, we’ll remember our soldiers,” Nicholls said.

A few years after the war, residents raised the equivalent of $213,000 in today’s dollars to commission the carillon from Gillett and Johnston, a British foundry that used a special vertical lathe to grind and tune each of the 23 bronze bells hanging in the tower.

The largest bell, which chimes the hour and weighs almost 1,600 pounds, features an inscription honouring Norfolk’s war dead.

Norfolk’s future carillon made its debut at the 1924 British Empire Exhibition, a showcase akin to the World’s Fair that drew tens of millions of visitors.

“Heads of state, members of the Royal Family heard the bells that were coming to Simcoe,” said James Christison, a museum curator and historian.

A radio broadcast of a concert at the exhibition by famed Belgian carillonneur Josef Denyn brought the perfectly tuned tones into homes throughout the British Empire.

“The newspapers were saying, ‘Whoever gets this carillon will receive one of the best in the world,’” Nicholls said.

“And we’d already bought it.”

The distinctive clock tower stands near Simcoe’s public high school and the Lynn River on land the local school board donated in memory of former students who died on the battlefields of Europe.

“I’ve always found it amazing that this small community, even smaller in 1925, came together to create such a unique and fitting tribute,” Christison said.

A century of music

Norfolk council declared a holiday on June 17, 1925, and a crowd of thousands flocked to witness the dedication of the new cenotaph, which housed only the second carillon ever installed in Canada.

Exactly 100 years later, residents will again parade to the Carillon Tower on June 17 for a ceremony that will “replicate, as closely as possible, the original dedication in 1925,” said Christison, who leads the Carillon 100 committee.

Attendees will hear music specially composed for the occasion, and a choir from West Lynn Public School in Simcoe will perform a hymn with lyrics adapted from the dedication speech delivered a century ago.

Hanging inside West Lynn is a photo of former student Petty Officer Craig Blake, a bomb disposal expert who was killed in Afghanistan in 2010 and whose name adorns one of the memorial plaques at the base of the Carillon Tower.

Descendants of the Silver Cross Mothers who unveiled the plaques commemorating Norfolk’s fallen will be on hand in June to lay wreaths during the service.

Volunteer carillonneurs spend many hours up in the bell tower, providing the soundtrack to languorous summer evenings and frantic Christmas shopping sprees. But Christison said the carillon is first and foremost a monument to valour.

“This is not only a musical instrument, but our countywide war memorial,” he said.

“And it’s important to remember the sacrifices that were made.”

- J.P. Antonacci is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter based at the Hamilton Spectator. The initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.