This recital features electroacoustic and acoustic works for carillon by Dr. Julie Zhu, performed by the composer with Associate Professors John Granzow and Tiffany Ng, and musicology doctoral student Eric Whitmer. Audiences are invited to listen anywhere outside. The bell chamber will be closed to the public during this special event.

bellvoix is a site-specific performance at U-M’s Burton Memorial Tower. Instead of broadcasting songs, the carillon has a speaking voice. Artist and performer Julie Zhu talks through a convolution of her voice and bell sounds to passersby, surprising them with specific details surveilled from the tower, goading them into conversation.

When a carillon cyborg finally acquires language, what will she say? How might listeners – who don’t have a choice whether to listen – react to the authority of a public musical instrument who necessarily has opinions? bellvoix makes obvious the specific social contract between the carillon and the community it serves, woos, or antagonizes. Who is the carillon? And why do we bell?

JULIE ZHU, President’s Postdoctoral Fellow and Assistant Professor (performing arts technology), will be joined by fellow musicians John Granzow, Tiffany Ng, and Eric Whitmer to perform additional works from her carillon oeuvre, including lumière for carillon and electronics, allegro, and i knelt before the passing time. The composition of bellvoix was supported by the U-M Arts Initiative and premiered earlier in 2024 in the series “XR/XF: Extended Realities/Extended Feminisms” with the Digital Studies Institute.

This event is part of the 2024 University of Michigan Organ Conference / Great Lakes Regional Carillon Meeting, supported by the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance and a Fall/Winter Gatherings Grant from the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America.