New carillon music will soon ring from MCC’s iconic clock tower as the result of a collaborative effort by MCC and Arizona State University.
The 60-foot-high MCC Alumni Clock Tower was installed in 1990 and employed music developed using sophisticated digital recording technology of the era to simulate the warm authentic tones of real carillon bells.
New music could not be recorded without a working set of carillon bells, which MCC does not have. As it turns out ASU not only has the same ancient programming machine but also has operational carillon bells. This discovery led us to initiate a partnership to provide hands-on experiences for our students using the technology and brings new carillon recordings to our campus.
Danette Turner and Maria Dawes, members of an MCC Center for Community & Civic Engagement Action Team, took the lead in recruiting interested student and alumni carillon bell performers and coordinated with MCC and ASU faculty to arrange practice recording sessions at ASU.
The MCC carillon players: Carin Dawson, Roylee Brown, Kasumi Kubota, Tatiana Resev, Nina Tahbaz and Yumiko Ueda trekked to ASU on countless occasions over the past year to develop the music that will soon broadcast from our college’s landmark.
MCC student Jeff Eberlein undertook the task of sound and video recording and figuring out the details of programming the old machine to play the new music.
After a year of intensive work by many dedicated volunteers, new music was recorded. Project collaborators celebrated their success with a reception on Oct. 12 where they enjoyed excerpts from their labors from the MCC Library balcony.
We hope new music will ring across campus from the clock tower before the end of the Spring 2018 semester. In the meantime, please take a few minutes to watch a short video and enjoy a preview of the new melodies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZoMDxPpGyI. (Note: The video is 2 minutes, 30 seconds, not the 4 minutes, 38 seconds indicated).