Presented By: School of Music, Theatre & Dance (SMTD)
Carillon Master Class with Alex Johnson
2025 U-M Organ Conference
Guest artist Alex Johnson presents a carillon master class. Free and open to the public; presented in conjunction with the 2025 U-M Organ Conference: "Ludus Chronalis: Time, Cadence, and Temporality in Keyboard Music and Sacred Spaces."
ABOUT THE GUEST ARTIST
ALEX JOHNSON is the seventh University Carillonist of the University of Chicago. In this role, he regularly plays the seventy-two bell, one-hundred ton Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Carillon for Sunday services, weddings, convocations, and other major university events. He also instructs and advises the twenty members of the UChicago Guild of Carillonists, a student organization which provides the campus most of its carillon music during the week. Alex serves the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America as chair of the Arrangements & Transcriptions Subcommittee of Music Publications and as a juror for the Johan Franco Composition Committee. Alex has performed across North America, Europe, and Australia, and he is an avid composer, improviser, and supporter of new music.
Previously, Alex taught high school math in Austin, Texas, where he played and taught the carillon informally at the University of Texas. Alex graduated summa cum laude from the Royal Carillon School ‘Jef Denyn’ in Belgium, and before that he studied in residency as the Carillon Fellow at Bok Tower Gardens in Lake Wales, Florida. Alex began his carillon studies at the University of Rochester, from where he obtained a degree in Physics. During his college years, he studied gamelan and mbira music at Eastman School of Music, and he spent a semester abroad studying and playing the carillon in Australia at the University of Sydney. In 2019, Alex won 1st Prize Overall, Best Performance of a Work by a Belgian Composer, and the Improvisation Competition at the 8th iteration of the most prestigious carillon competition, the International Queen Fabiola Carillon Competition, held in Mechelen, Belgium. Besides carillon, Alex enjoys cooking and spending time with nature, which, as a Hyde Park local, means spending lots of time at the Point.
ABOUT THE GUEST ARTIST
ALEX JOHNSON is the seventh University Carillonist of the University of Chicago. In this role, he regularly plays the seventy-two bell, one-hundred ton Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Carillon for Sunday services, weddings, convocations, and other major university events. He also instructs and advises the twenty members of the UChicago Guild of Carillonists, a student organization which provides the campus most of its carillon music during the week. Alex serves the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America as chair of the Arrangements & Transcriptions Subcommittee of Music Publications and as a juror for the Johan Franco Composition Committee. Alex has performed across North America, Europe, and Australia, and he is an avid composer, improviser, and supporter of new music.
Previously, Alex taught high school math in Austin, Texas, where he played and taught the carillon informally at the University of Texas. Alex graduated summa cum laude from the Royal Carillon School ‘Jef Denyn’ in Belgium, and before that he studied in residency as the Carillon Fellow at Bok Tower Gardens in Lake Wales, Florida. Alex began his carillon studies at the University of Rochester, from where he obtained a degree in Physics. During his college years, he studied gamelan and mbira music at Eastman School of Music, and he spent a semester abroad studying and playing the carillon in Australia at the University of Sydney. In 2019, Alex won 1st Prize Overall, Best Performance of a Work by a Belgian Composer, and the Improvisation Competition at the 8th iteration of the most prestigious carillon competition, the International Queen Fabiola Carillon Competition, held in Mechelen, Belgium. Besides carillon, Alex enjoys cooking and spending time with nature, which, as a Hyde Park local, means spending lots of time at the Point.
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