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			The Carillon
		The Marion Lundstrom Memorial Carillon The carillon is an extraordinary musical instrument. Its history is as rich as it is long. For more than five centuries, the carillon has been a voice for the hope, aspirations and joys of humankind.  Carillons are found in cities, small towns, churches, zoos, botanical gardens, universities and even at private residences.  School campuses and parks provide particularly pleasant settings to listen to carillon music. The traditional keyboard has been integral to the carillon art for more than 500 years and shares similarities with other keyboard instruments. Carillons are constructed of cast bells weighing thousands of pounds and in larger instruments the bass bells can weigh 20,000 Ibs making a 67 belI carillon weigh in at many hundreds of thousands of pounds including the concrete and steel support structure. For example Princeton University's 67 bell carillon is housed in Cleveland Tower of the Old Graduate College. This Gothic tower is 40 feet square and 173 feet high. The cost of an instrument of this magnitude will be in the millions of dollars. The Tower Carillon at St. Matthew is a digital electronic system. The manufacturer has painstakingly traveled virtually around the world and digitally sampled the great bell voices of Cathedrals and churches that have rung for hundreds of years. The swinging and struck bell sounds have been digitized and encoded into memory and can be played, producing a bell sound of high authenticity.  A variety of 8 distinct bell voices can be played: American cast bell, Flemish struck and swinging, Italian struck and swinging, French struck, German struck and Tower chimes. With the technology of the digital computer we have at our command the tolls, peals and change-ring peals of bell voices of many historic bell towers that have celebrated special events throughout the ages. Fires, invasions, coronations, royal weddings and the holy feast days of the Christian church have been marked by these famous bells. The carillon is a wonderful accent to your wedding, chiming and ringing celebration peals, well known hymns and other music during, before and after  your wedding service.  We hope you will enjoy the carillon as part of your wedding day as brides have done in centuries past in the capitals of Europe and in the large churches of France, England, Germany and America. We can now ring these old and distant sounds of the ages for all to enjoy at St. Matthew that will add the perfect touch that always arises when we think about weddings ....... ........Wedding Bells! Of course!