Start: October 26, 2024 11 a.m.
End: October 26, 2024 12 p.m.
About
Join us for an incredible outdoor performance from Ball State's iconic Bell Tower! As a part of our Homecoming celebration, carillonneur John Gouwens will perform for the Ball State community to hear throughout campus. Come celebrate the beauty of Ball State through song! This concert is free and open to the public.
Guest Artist: John Gouwens, Carillonneur
John Gouwens served from 1980 to 2019 as Organist and Carillonneur of the Culver Academies. In addition he taught piano students, and for several years also directed the choirs. Today, he is active as a consultant for carillon installations, while also performing occasionally on the carillons of Ball State University and Indiana University.
Gouwens is noted for his improvisation skills, on the organ and on the carillon, and has given presentations for several chapters of the American Guild of Organists and for annual congresses of the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America on this subject. He also won a carillon improvisation contest at the 1983 GCNA congress, the first such competition held by that organization. In 2004, he hosted the annual congress of the GCNA at Culver, having done so also in 1985. Gouwens is also active on the chapter level in the American Guild of Organists, where is a past dean of both the Saint Joseph Valley Chapter and the Fort Wayne Chapter.
He has written many works for carillon as well as several pieces for choir. He continues to receive commissions for new carillon music, including a large-scale piece for The University of Chicago, and for a hymn-based piece for The Guild of Carillonneurs in North America.