Once Upon a Time, Liesbeth Janssens – “Tower Thoughts” Carillon New Music Festival

Описание: Once Upon a Time (2024)
Liesbeth Janssens (b. 1971)
World premiere
Katherine Chen, carillon

Once Upon a Time: Of all music, I love folk music the most because of its simplicity, its rhythmic impulses, harmonic colors and its truthfulness to the hearts of people of every race and culture. I am not as much interested in novelty or modernism, because that will one day become old-fashioned, rather I strive to write something that uses the rhythmic percussion of the carillon combined with simple folk-based harmonies and melodies. Once Upon a Time is a combination of mind and heart. The first half is more rhythmic and rational, while the second half is penned from a recorded improvisation I played and therefore appeals more to the heart. As usual, in terms of form it is a rhapsody inspired by Bohemian Rhapsody: bits and pieces knitted together. The opening is also something that recurs in other works: the setting of the piece in open intervals. This is inspired by Canadian composer Émilien Allard, who said that if you first create a big blur or a cloud of sound, the ear is set and then you can do whatever you want. There are a few evocative titles throughout the piece that you can use to create your own story: Improvvisato, Gaudioso, Rollercoaster and Cantabile. The piece also uses one of my favorite effects: glissandos with a book sliding across the keys.

—Liesbeth Janssens

Once Upon a Time was commissioned for this festival by Rockefeller
Memorial Chapel. This is its world premiere performance.

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.