University Carillonist Jeff Davis will be one of this weekend’s performers. (UC Berkeley photo by Stephen McNally)
UC Berkeley's celebrated bells will be rung more than usual this weekend at the Eighth Berkeley Carillon Festival. On Saturday and Sunday, campus musicians will perform 45-minute recitals twice daily - on Saturday at noon and 1 p.m. and on Sunday at 2 and 3 p.m. The event, free and open to the public, will honor the Class of 1928, which in 1978 raised funds to turn the tower's 12-bell chime into a 48-bell concert carillon. The carillon's original 12 bells, a gift of Jane K. Sather, were installed and first played in 1918. In 1983, a multimillion-dollar gift from Jerry Chambers, a 1928 Berkeley alumnus, and his wife, Evelyn, upped the number of bells to 61 and changed the concert carillon to a grand carillon. The Chambers' endowment also provided for a permanent, fulltime university carillonist in the Department of Music - there is no position like it today at any other North American university - as well as a campanology library, practice rooms and keyboards and a carillon festival every five years. Festivals have held at Berkeley every five years, except in 2008, when no funds were available. This weekend, carillonists will play music written for Berkeley's carillon by local composers and others.
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