Smith Carillon Concert Series Begins July 13
Smith Chapel benefactor Larry Smith, owner of Automation Devices, Inc. in Fairview, poses with some of the Behrend carillon’s 48 bells during their May 2002 installation in the chapel tower. Smith named the college’s carillon for his parents, Floyd and Juanita.
The summer Smith Carillon Concert Series at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, begins Thursday, July 13, at 7 p.m. with a performance by Dutch carillonneur Anne Kroeze.
The following Thursday, July 20, the featured musician will be Linda Dzuris, who in 1999 was appointed the first University Carillonneur at Clemson. Charles Dairay, carillon assistant in Saint-Amand Les Eaux, France, will conclude the series on Thursday, July 27.
All three performances will begin at 7 p.m. and are free and open to the public. Seating will be on the lawn of the John M. Lilley Library, so concertgoers are encouraged to bring a chair or blanket. Refreshments will be served.
“The Smith Series is a wonderful way to spend a summer evening,” promises Kelly Shrout, Behrend’s coordinator of community service and the Smith Chapel. “Each of the performers is a member of the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America and is an amazing musician.”
The largest of the 48 bells in the Floyd and Juanita Smith Carillon weighs 1,344 pounds and has a forty-inch diameter. The smallest weighs fifteen and one-quarter pounds and measures just under seven inches at the mouth.
The Smith Carillon bells are hung “dead” in a steel framework; they do not swing. Instead, the clappers are brought to the bells using levers and a system of counterbalanced transmission bars. The carillon is played from a hand clavier located in the tower room of the Larry and Kathryn Smith Chapel.
The carillon bells were cast by bell founders Meeks, Watson & Co. in Georgetown, Ohio, of “bell metal,” an alloy of 80 percent copper and 20 percent tin that has been used for carillon bells since the 1600s. The 48 bells cover four octaves, which permits performance of almost the entire literature of carillon music.