Featured Carillon Projects
Church of the Good Shepherd (Episcopal), Corpus Christi, TX
This church possessed a 35 bell, three octave Petit & Fritsen carillon installed in 1954; this instrument was played regularly, but the action and framing were much deteriorated. Some of the larger bells had been positioned in the tower windows of this Spanish-style building, which was visually interesting, but undesirable from both an acoustic and mechanical standpoint for the carillon. We completed a thorough renovation, and the addition of 8 new bells in 1997, bringing this carillon to a compass of 3 ½ octaves, (43 bells). This renovation included new main and treble bell frames, hot-dip galvanized for this location overlooking Corpus Christi Bay; all bells were now hung within the bell chambers, and arranged in a manner that promoted both an even sound transmission to the listening areas, as well as an enhanced design for excellent access to the action. The lowest basses were fitted with new sealed ball bearing transmission bar type action, while the mediums and trebles were fitted with new sealed ball bearing radial-type action. New 4 1/2 octave playing and practice keyboards were also built, to allow future additions. The largest new bell furnished at this time was a C4 of 650 lbs., to fill the originally-omitted second keyboard semitone. The church built a new playing platform, to eliminate excess transmission wire length, and provide a location for the installation of the new, larger, playing keyboard. A finished room at the gallery level in the tower was made available to be the new practice room, and the new practice keyboard was installed here. At the same time, the church had the original ineffective wooden movable shutters in the bell chamber openings removed, and a new system of electrically operated rolling protective closures, to keep weather out of the chamber when the carillon is not being played. In October, 1999, we added 5 more bells for this carillon (two large bells and three trebles), for which the bell frames were prepared, completing a four-octave instrument of 48 bells, from G3. (http://cotgs.org/music.htm)
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The new bourdon is hoisted in, 1999 |