Gordon Slater studied the piano from the age of 4 and started playing the carillon when he was 7 by assisting his father, James, a former carillonneur at the Metropolitan United Church in Toronto. Before serving as the Dominion Carillonneur from 1977 to 2008, Mr. Slater held the position of carillonneur at three other Canadian carillons: the Rainbow Tower Carillon in Niagara Falls, Ontario; the Carlsberg Carillon of the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto; and the Soldiers’ Tower Carillon of the University of Toronto. As a professional member of the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America, he served on the board of directors, on the examination committee, on the music selection committee, and as editor of its academic publication, The Bulletin. He holds the Berkeley Medal from the University of California at Berkeley for distinguished service to the carillon. Mr. Slater conducts Divertimento Orchestra, a 70-piece amateur symphony, and plays bassoon and contrabassoon with the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra.
Former Dominion Carillonneurs
The Dominion Carilloneur is the musician responsible for the Peace Tower Carillon program. There have been five Dominion Carillonneurs since the bells were installed in the Peace Tower in 1927. Today, the position is held by Dr. Andrea McCrady, who was appointed in 2008.
Émilien Allard began his musical career as a church organist, clarinetist and band conductor in Grand-Mère, Québec. Following keyboard and music theory studies at the Conservatoire national in Montréal, he played in the Royal Canadian Air Force’s Central Band as a clarinetist from 1942 to 1945. After the war, he earned a diploma at the Royal Carillon School in Mechelen, Belgium, under Jef van Hoof and Staf Nees. He continued his musical training in Paris, where he studied conducting with Eugène Bigot, musical analysis with Olivier Messiaen, and orchestration with Maurice Duruflé. He was appointed carillonneur at St. Joseph’s Oratory in Montréal in 1955 and won the International Carillonneurs’ Prize in Mechelen, in 1958. He composed 50 works for carillon, made more than 700 transcriptions, and wrote works for chamber ensembles and symphony orchestras. Although steeped in the French-Canadian folk song tradition, his music was marked by the innovative use of unusual scales and rhythmic patterns. He performed extensive recital tours of the carillons of North America, and officially left his post at St. Joseph’s Oratory in 1975 to serve as Dominion Carillonneur on the Peace Tower Carillon, where he stayed until his death in 1976.
Robert Donnell received his musical training in Canada, the United States and Europe. He was appointed carillonneur of the Cutten Memorial Carillon at St. George’s Church in Guelph, Ontario, following its inauguration in 1926. In 1936 he was appointed assistant to Percival Price in Ottawa. After graduating from the Royal Carillon School in Mechelen, Belgium, in 1938, Donnell succeeded Price as Dominion Carillonneur in 1940. From 1939 to 1942, Donnell also studied orchestration and composition in New York City under Bernard Wagenaar, at the Juilliard School, and under William Flanagan, at the New York College of Music, then served with the Royal Canadian Air Force from 1942 to 1945. He was a charter member of The Guild of Carillonneurs in North America and sat on its board of directors, serving as music advisor, as president, and as host of the Guild’s congresses in Ottawa in 1955 and 1967. After retiring as Dominion Carillonneur in 1975, he continued to play at the Rainbow Tower Carillon in Niagara Falls, Ontario, where he performed guest recitals until his death in 1986.
Percival Price was born in Toronto. For 50 years he was a carillonneur, composer, teacher, carillon architect, campanologist, author, professor, lecturer, and historian. He received a Bachelor of Music from the University of Toronto and continued his music studies in Vienna and Zurich. He was the first carillonneur at the first carillon in North America, at the Metropolitan Church in Toronto, in 1922, and the first carillonneur at the Rockefeller Carillon in New York City, in 1926, before becoming the first Dominion Carillonneur of the Peace Tower in Ottawa in 1927. He was the first North American to graduate from the Royal Carillon School in Mechelen, Belgium, in 1927. He was a charter member and one of the founders of The Guild of Carillonneurs in North America in Ottawa in 1936, later serving as its president. He was University Carillonneur at the University of Michigan, from 1939 to 1971. He composed and arranged over a thousand selections for the carillon and wrote extensive articles on the study of bells across the world, culminating in his book, Bells and Man, published by Oxford University Press in 1983. In 1974 he was named Honorary President of the World Carillon Federation.