WEST HARTFORD : USA - CT

   Gordon Stearns Memorial Carillon

*Location:

   First Church of Christ, Congregational 
   South Main Street, in town center 
   West Hartford, Connecticut, USA 
   LL: N 41.7608 W 72.7415

Locator map via or
Also see our own Map Use Hints.

*Player:

   Virginia Vocelli   (Su) 
   77 Bonny View Road 
   West Hartford, CT  06107-3402 
   H: (860)521-6147   W: (860)673-9712 
   E: GVocelli@comcast.net 
   - and - 
   Linda Bronstein 
   E: lindadiane@peoplepc.com

*Contact:

   First Church of Christ 
   12 South Main Street 
   West Hartford, CT  06107-2046 
   T: (860)233-9605   F: (860)232-8183 
   E: music@whfirstchurch.org

*Schedule:

   Sundays throughout the year; 
   summer series with guest recitalists.

      The latest summer schedule of recitals and recitalists

*Remarks:

   Original two-octave practice keyboard 
   no longer exists.  The enlargement of
   1985 was done by Tim Hurd.

*Technical data:

   Traditional carillon of 50 bells
   Pitch of heaviest bell is A# in the middle octave
   Transposition is up one octave
   Keyboard range:     A#C   /    A#C 26
   There is one missing bass semitone
   There is no practice console
   The instrument was enlarged in 1985
     with bells made by Whitechapel 
   Prior history:
     In 1969, the instrument was begun with 24 bells
       by Whitechapel 
   Year of latest technical information source is 2006

Additional information on the technical history of this instrument can be found in a database printout.

*Links:

The church Website has an iconic tower sketch on the home page.  In the Music section there is a Carillon page, which includes photos of the tower and bells and gives the summer concert schedule. 

A Web page on Connecticut Carillons has brief descriptions of 10 of the 11 carillons in this state, with thumbnail photos linked to larger JPEG files.

Where the initial phase of this work lies in the sequence of output of the Whitechapel bellfoundry, in this region and in the world.
Where the final phase of this work lies in the sequence of output of the Whitechapel bellfoundry, in this region and in the world.

Ranking among all North American traditional carillons by weight.

Ranking among all North American traditional carillons by size (number of bells).

Ranking among all North American concert class carillons by age.

Index to all traditional carillons in CT.

Index to all tower bell instruments in CT.

*Status:

   This page was built from the database on  7-Apr-06
   based on textual data last updated on 2006/04/07
   and on technical data last updated on 2006/04/07

Explanations of page format and keyboard range are available.

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