Member bio
Of Flemish-Irish parents, Adrian holds the unique distinction of being the first Irish carillonneur in the long history of the instrument. A graduate of the National University of Ireland, he also studied at the Municipal School of Music in Cork (Ireland) and at the Universities of Salamanca and Navarra in Spain. He received his initial carillon tuition from his late father (Staf Gebruers) and subsequently studied at the Royal Carillon School in Mechelen (Flanders). In 2025 he celebrates his fifty-fifth year as Carillonneur of St Colman's Cathedral in Cobh, a picturesque harbour town on Ireland's southern coast; in the summer of 2002 Cobh and University College Cork were the location for the 13th Congress of the World Carillon Federation and in the summer of 2003 of the IX Eurocarillon Festival. In 2019 at a ceremony in Dublin, the Minister for Arts formally designated Carillon Playing in Cobh part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Ireland. Adrian has concertised in Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Japan. He has been the recipient of several Travel Awards and a research grant from the Irish Arts Council and Department of Foreign Affairs, as well as a Tyrone Guthrie Centre – Cork County Council Regional Bursary and commissions from the Contemporary Music Centre Ireland and Alfred University (New York). A former Assistant Principal of Colaiste Muire in Cobh, he is lecturer in carillon studies at the Music Department of University College Cork. A founding Vice-President of Eurocarillon, he was President of the World Carillon Federation from 1998 to 2006. In 2022 he was unanimously elected an Honorary Life Member of the Carillon Society of Britain and Ireland in recognition of his services to the carillon art. In 2005 he received from Pope John Paul II the very special honour of being made a Papal Knight of the Order of St Gregory the Great (KSG) for services to the Church. He has become increasingly interested in composing and adapting music of the Irish traditional idiom for the carillon, an instrument that he believes is particularly suited to this genre. He is married to physiologist Dr Elizabeth Gebruers and they have two sons, two daughters and nine grandchildren.
