Following on last year’s very successful World Carillon Congress, the 9th Eurocarillon Festival takes place in Cobh, County Cork, from 25 to 28 September, the first occasion this annual event is being held in Ireland. The Festival will bring together some of Europe’s leading carillonneurs from England, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Ireland, the Netherlands and Spain to present recitals on the magnificent 49-bell carillon of St Colman’s Cathedral. Originally installed in 1916, this unusual musical instrument underwent a major restoration and modernisation in 1998 and is now the largest carillon in these islands. Whereas the carillon is played from a console (keyboard and pedal-board) located high up in the Cathedral belfry, thanks to a closed-circuit system the public can observe the carillonneur on a screen located at ground level.
The theme of this year’s Festival is ‘The Carillon and the Classics’, and it is organised by the Cobh Carillon Committee and sponsored by St Colman’s Cathedral with grant aid from the Arts Council. Recitals commence at 11.00 am and 3.00 pm on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday of the festival and at 2.00 pm on the Sunday and will doubtless include some of the many twentieth- and twenty-first-century works written for the instrument.
