Does a bell have to ring before it is truly a bell? The Russian Tsar Bell was the largest bell ever cast at over 200 tons. But in 1732, before it was ever struck, this Goliath of bells broke. Its parts have been on display in the Kremlin ever since.

A team of UC Berkeley, Stanford, and U-M researchers made the Tsar Bell ring for the very first time. With Finite Element Analysis (FEA), they created a computational model of what the bell might have sounded like. The recreated Tsar Bell will be "played" in concert with the Charles Baird Carillon, in between Bicentennial HAILstorm! showings.

Set list (all selections performed by Prof. Tiffany Ng)

5:00 pm: "June's Ring" by Stanford Prof. Chris Chafe, duet with Isaac Levine
5:45 pm: "counterfactuals" by PAT Prof. Chris Burns (world premiere)
9:15 pm: "Euler's Bell" by PAT Prof. John Granzow
9:45 pm: "Phantasmes" by Yale professor Kathryn Alexander (world premiere)

Sponsored by the U-M Bicentennial Activity Grant and Meyer Sound.