lumière, Julie Zhu – “Tower Thoughts” Carillon New Music Festival

Описание: lumière (2022)
Julie Zhu (b. 1990)
Premiered at the University of Chicago, June 2022
Tiffany Ng, carillon

lumière means light, which can be described both as a wave and a particle. The carillon is known to swell, like a wave, but at the core of its mechanism, it is also a particle. It cannot sustain, truly. Each strike is discrete and cannot be muted or elongated. Only through repeated strikes can the note live on. lumière is about this duality. All of the electronics treatments for lumière extend and enhance the carillon from the instrument and performance itself. The samples playing through the speakers are a synthetic reinforcement of a psychoacoustic phenomenon that is perceived in the ear when two tones are sounded at the same time. Specifically, difference tones — a tone with the frequency of the difference between the frequencies of the two original tones — are triggered, providing a cocoon of bass harmonies for the soprano carillon. The performer also wears a ring that speaks to the laptop, the speed and position of which modulates the electronics live. lumière was commissioned by the University of Chicago for the 2022 Congress of the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America.

—Julie Zhu

lumière was commissioned by Rockefeller Memorial Chapel for the 90th Anniversary of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Carillon. This piece was premiered in June 2022 at the annual congress of The Guild of Carillonneurs in North America, which was hosted that year at the University of Chicago.

The Tower Thoughts Carillon New Music Festival presented 44 pieces from the 21st century, including 6 new commissions by Rockefeller Chapel and 11 world premieres in total. Three guest artists from around the world, together with University of Chicago carillonists, performed five concerts over the course of a weekend, May 9-11, 2025. Additionally, the tower was given a voice, the live voice of a human, broadcast out the bell chambers via four large speakers. With this voice, between every piece, the tower shared a snippet of its life, a glimpse of what it’s seen, heard, felt, and thought about since 1928, a brief, fleeting tower thought. This festival, devised by Alex Johnson, the 7th University Carillonist of the University of Chicago, is the second Carillon New Music Festival in Chicago History. The first was Ripple Effects, produced in 2018, devised by Joey Brink, the 6th University Carillonist.

Recording by C W Media.