Stop 4: The Peace Tower Carillon

The Peace Tower Carillon is an iconic architectural landmark, a national soundmark, and a memorial to those who fought in the First World War. Inaugurated on July 1st, 1927, then-Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King announced that the Peace Tower carillon would serve as “the voice of the nation in thanksgiving and praise.” It is an impressive acoustic and mechanical musical instrument, comprising 53 bells, ranging from 4.5 kg to 11 tonnes that were cast and tuned in Croydon, England.

The Canadian national anthem was the first piece performed on the carillon by the first Dominion Carillonneur, Percival Price. This was broadcast across the country on the Canadian National Railway radio, making it the first cross-country broadcast on the first national radio network. It was a spectacular attempt to bind together listeners from coast to coast via the space-binding technological infrastructure of railway and radio.These infrastructures were crucial to the expansion and dominance of the settler colonial state and heroic achievements through large scale infrastructure projects have been part of the white, masculine, Anglo-Canadian imagination since the nineteenth century

Mackenzie King reiterated the role of the carillon in his speech for the opening of the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto in 1928.

Although the carillon’s origins are European, bells have been used around the world as communal signals marking civic events from the mundane aspects of everyday life, to exceptional circumstances such as military invasions, fires, and curfews. When the Peace Tower carillon was inaugurated, Indian Residential Schools were operating in full force under the direction of Duncan Campbell Scott and the Department of Indian Affairs, and attendance was mandatory under the 1930 Indian Act. Residential schools were managed and policed through sequences marked by the chiming of bells, which, for Indigenous children, became part of a soundscape of violence, oppression, loss, trauma, and genocide. As scholar Patrick Nickleson has argued, the Peace Tower carillon is a soundmark of settler colonialism, and a reminder of the forced assimilation and eradication of Indigenous peoples and cultures by religious and governmental authorities. While the Peace Tower carillon may evoke colonial nostalgia and pride in the broader Canadian population, for many Indigenous peoples, the carillon embodies the sonified power and brutality of the Canadian state.

The current and fifth Dominion Carillonneur is Dr. Andrea McCrady. She is the first woman to occupy the position, which she has held since 2008. As the Dominion Carillonneur, McCrady organizes, programs, and performs the repertoire for the Peace Tower Carillon. She also teaches Carillon Studies at Carleton University, which is the only post-secondary certification program in Canada. While “O Canada” remains the first piece on the daily noon-hour recital program, McCrady aims for diversity in her repertoire, and emphasizes women composers. Among others, McCrady has adapted music by Indigenous composers Beverley McKivor and Madeleine Allakariallak for the carillon.

As the “Sound of the Nation,” the Peace Tower carillon is an important symbol that regulates the soundscape on Parliament Hill through its reliable chime marking each quarter hour, and daily noon-hour performances by the Dominion Carillonneur on weekdays. The carillon is currently silent while Centre Block undergoes a full restoration, including the carillon bells and keyboards.