LAWRENCE, Kan. — A carillon is a musical instrument, a set of bells in a tower played by pushing down on levers.
They’re some of the largest musical instruments in the world, and there’s only one in Kansas, atop the Campanile, the 120-foot-tall tower on the University of Kansas campus in Lawrence.
This week, the country’s top carillon players — known as carillonneurs (pronounced "carol-uh-nors") — are coming to Lawrence to play the KU carillon.
Liz Berghout, the official carillonneur at the University of Kansas, performed on the KU carillon at 6 p.m. Tuesday as part of the Carillonneur Guild’s 82nd Annual Congress (June 10-14). It's the first time the conference has been held in town since 1997.
Inside the Campanile are 53 bells, the largest weighing more than six tons and measuring 6 feet across at its mouth, arranged in an elliptical pattern.
Each bell's note is determined by its size, and players operate the instrument by moving wooden levers, which pull a wire connected to a striker inside the bells.
Only about 10 people can fit inside the room, and you can't really see outside — or see the people you're playing for.
"It does take some getting used to," Berghout says. "But on the other side, there's not as much stage fright because you can't see the people you're playing for."
The U.S. has fewer than 1,000 carillonneurs; it's not the kind of instrument your mom and dad can buy at the second hand store.
Berghout first experienced the instrument growing up near Brigham Young University, which has its own carillon. But she didn't learn to play until she came to KU, where she learned from the university's Carillonneur at the time, Albert Gerken.
"I was completely fascinated and decided that I had to start lessons," she says.
Berghout says the best place to get the full effect of the KU carillon is down the hill, about 200 feet away from the base of the Campanile.
