The 2015 Carillon Concert & Midwest Regional Carillon Conference will take place Friday and Saturday on campus.

The two-day festival, which celebrates one of Iowa State’s biggest traditions, is free and open to the public and will begin at 5:30 p.m. Friday at the Martha-Ellen Tye Recital Hall.

A reception, sponsored by the Society of ISU Carillon Alumni and Friends, will take place from 6:30 to 7:15 p.m. in the Music Hall Lobby.

The second day of the carillon festival will resume at 2 p.m. Saturday on Central Campus. Campanile tours will begin at 3 p.m. 

From 2 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. Saturday, George Gregory and Julianne Vanden Wyngaard will perform as guest carillonneurs. 

Gregory has been an organist and carillonneur at Central Christian Church in San Antonio, Texas, since 1958. He is also a member of The Guild of Carillonneurs in North America. As the director of the San Antonio Early Music Ensemble, Gregory presents programs throughout the Southwestern part of the United States, using a large collection of early instruments. 

Vanden Wyngaard is a noted concert pianist and has been principal performer/teacher on the Cook Carillon since 1994 at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. As an active member of The Guild of Carillonneurs in North America since 1995, Vanden Wyngaard achieved Carillonneur status in 1999.

The Edgar W. and Margaret MacDonald Stanton Memorial Carillon, also known as the Bells of Iowa State, was established by Edgar as a monument for his wife, Margaret, who was the university’s first dean of women and spent almost 25 years at Iowa State.

Edgar graduated with Iowa State’s first class in 1872, spending half a century on campus. He was also the head of the mathematics department, secretary of the Board of Trustees, dean of the junior college and acting president on four different occasions.

Tin-Shi Tam, university carillonneur, said Friday’s opening concert will feature three collaborative performances that use advanced network technologies.

“Performers are connected via LOLA, a low latency audio-visual streaming system, which allow[s] musicians to perform together in real time in two remote venues,” Tam said. “I will be in the Campanile performing one piece with the percussion ensemble of the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, Fla., and two music selections with a student brass quintet at ISU who will be on stage in Martha-Ellen Tye Recital Hall.”

Tam said this network performance will be the first of its kind for the carillon.

A live webcast of Friday and Saturday’s events is available on the Music Hall website.

For a full schedule of the carillon festival events and lectures, visit ISU Music Hall’s carillon festival web page.