Gordon Frederick Slater (born August 22, 1950) is a Canadian carillonneur (musician who plays tower bells), conductor, bassoonist and organist. A graduate of the Royal Conservatory of Music of the University of Toronto, he is best known for holding the position of Dominion Carillonneur of Canada [1] from 1977 to 2008. He is only the fourth person to have held that post since its inception in 1927, performing daily recitals on the carillon in the Peace Tower of the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada's national capital.
Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Slater began his musical studies at the age of four, as a piano student of Carmel Archambault at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. He studied with Archambault until 1964 and went on to study bassoon under Nicholas Kilburn [2] at the University of Toronto from 1968 to 1971. Slater started playing the carillon with his father, James B. Slater, [3] in 1957 while the latter was carillonneur at Toronto's Metropolitan United Church. Gordon Slater also studied carillon with Robert Donnell [4] in Ottawa from 1973 to 1974 and later with Milford Myhre [5] at the carillon of Bok Tower Gardens in Lake Wales, Florida. [6]
He held the position of Organist and Choirmaster from 1969 to 1972 at Riverdale Presbyterian Church in Toronto. He worked as Carillonneur at the Soldiers Tower carillon of the University of Toronto from 1969 to 1977. He was Carillonneur at the Rainbow Tower carillon in Niagara Falls, Ontario from 1972 to 1975. He oversaw the installation of the Exhibition Place Carillon at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto, Ontario in 1974 and was Carillonneur there from 1974 to 1976. He released several records in the 1970s, including the 1978 LP record Bells and Brass with the Canadian Brass. Slater was the Dominion Carillonneur of Canada from 1977 to 2008. In this position, he performed on the carillon in the Peace Tower of the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa. Beginning in 1977 he played bassoon and contrabassoon in several Ottawa groups including the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra from 1979 to the present. [6]
He worked for Charles Franklin David Legge at the Legge Organ Co., Ltd. in Toronto, Ontario from 1970 to 1977 building, tuning and repairing pipe organs. From 1987 to 2024 he was Music Director of Divertimento Orchestra, [7] an amateur community orchestra based in Ottawa, Ontario. Slater also composes for and teaches the carillon.
A carillon ( KARR-ə-lon, kə-RIL-yən) is a pitched percussion instrument that is played with a keyboard and consists of at least 23 bells. The bells are cast in bronze, hung in fixed suspension, and tuned in chromatic order so that they can be sounded harmoniously together. They are struck with clappers connected to a keyboard of wooden batons played with the hands and pedals played with the feet. Often housed in bell towers, carillons are usually owned by churches, universities, or municipalities. They can include an automatic system through which the time is announced and simple tunes are played throughout the day.
Harkness Tower is a masonry tower at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Part of the Collegiate Gothic Memorial Quadrangle complex completed in 1922, it is named for Charles William Harkness, brother of Yale's largest benefactor, Edward Harkness.
The Toronto-Dominion Centre, or TD Centre, is an office complex of six skyscrapers in the Financial District of downtown Toronto owned by Cadillac Fairview. It serves as the global headquarters for its anchor tenant, the Toronto-Dominion Bank, and provides office and retail space for many other businesses. The complex consists of six towers and a pavilion covered in bronze-tinted glass and black-painted steel. Approximately 21,000 people work in the complex, making it the largest commercial office complex in Canada.
The Peace Tower is a focal bell and clock tower sitting on the central axis of the Centre Block of the Canadian parliament buildings in Ottawa, Ontario. The present incarnation replaced the 55-metre (180 ft) Victoria Tower, after the latter burned down in 1916, along with most of the Centre Block; only the Library of Parliament survived. It serves as a Canadian icon and had been featured prominently on the Canadian twenty-dollar bill, directly adjacent to the depiction of Queen Elizabeth II, until the change to polymer.
Thomas Baker McQuesten was a Canadian politician in Ontario, Canada. He was a Liberal member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1934 to 1943 who represented the riding of Hamilton—Wentworth. He served as a cabinet minister in the governments of Mitchell Hepburn and Gordon Conant.
John Jacob Weinzweig was a Canadian composer and teacher of classical music.
Léon Boëllmann was a French composer, known for a small number of compositions for organ. His best-known composition is Suite gothique (1895), which is a staple of the organ repertoire, especially its concluding Toccata.
Bok Tower Gardens is a 250-acre (100 ha) contemplative garden and bird sanctuary located atop Iron Mountain, north of Lake Wales, Florida, United States, created by Edward Bok in the 1920s. Formerly known as the Bok Mountain Lake Sanctuary and Singing Tower, the gardens' attractions include the Singing Tower and its 60-bell carillon, the Bok Exedra, the Pinewood Estate now known as El Retiro, the Pine Ridge Trail, and the Visitor Center.
The Rainbow Tower is a 50.3 metres (165 ft) tower located at the Rainbow Plaza Canada–United States border station of the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. Construction on the tower was completed in 1947. The tower, part of the Canadian plaza of the bridge, was designed by Canadian architect William Lyon Somerville.
The Royal Carillon School "Jef Denyn" is a music school in Mechelen, Belgium, that specializes in the carillon. It is the first and largest carillon school in the world. The Belgian government defines it as an "International Higher Institute for the Carillon Arts under the High Protection of Her Majesty Queen Fabiola". The school has trained many of the foremost carillonneurs of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and houses a rich archive and library.
The 1st Grey Cup was an inter-league championship game played on December 4, 1909, between the Intercollegiate Rugby Football Union champion Toronto Varsity and the Ontario Rugby Football Union champion Toronto Parkdale Canoe Club. The University of Toronto won the game, 26–6.
Andrew Ager is a Canadian composer of symphonies, operas, chamber, and solo music. He lives in Ottawa, where he composes full-time.
Émilien Allard was a Canadian carillonneur and composer. He composed more than 50 works for carillon and made more than 700 transcriptions of carillon music; many of which are still performed in Europe and North America. In 1958, he won the International Carillonneurs' Prize at the Brussels World's Fair. For RCA Victor he released the LP album Carols at the Carillon of Saint Joseph's Oratory for which he wrote the arrangements. His Marche du maréchal and his Marche H.I.C. were recorded by Howard Cable and his Notule No. 1 and Profil canadien no 2. were included on Gordon Slater's LP Bells and Brass. Many of his original manuscripts and papers are a part of the collection at the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec.
The Nieuwe Toren is located at the Oudestraat in the city of Kampen, in the Netherlands. This Carillon tower was built in the period between 1649-1664 partly according to a design by Philips Vingboons. The lower brick-built part was erected by the Edam mill maker Dirck Janzn. The design for the lantern was made by Philips Vingboons, which may have originally been intended for the Town hall now the Royal Palace of Amsterdam. The construction work went through many setbacks, the work even came to a standstill during the period 1655-1660. It was declared a Dutch National Monument (Rijksmonument) in 1972.
Wim Franken was a Dutch composer, pianist, and carillonneur.
John Edward Courter was an American composer, organist, and carillonneur who served as a professor of music at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky, from 1971 until his death on June 21, 2010. A native of Lansing, Michigan, Courter earned a bachelor's degree in choral music education from Michigan State University in 1962 and a Master's of Music degree in organ in 1966 from the University of Michigan. He also studied at the North German Organ Academy and held diplomas from the Netherlands Carillon School.
Ronald Montague Barnes was an American carillonist, composer, and musicologist. He first began playing the carillon as a teenager at his hometown's church. In 1952, at 24 years old, he was appointed to play the carillon at the University of Kansas, where he developed as a musician. He was later the carillonist for the Washington National Cathedral from 1963 to 1975 and the University of California, Berkeley, from 1982 until his retirement in 1995. He was an involved member of The Guild of Carillonneurs in North America, having served as its president, vice president, and several other roles.
Sally Slade Warner was a leading American carillonneur, carillon composer and arranger, and a church organist. She played the carillon at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Cohasset, Massachusetts, and the former carillon at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts.
The Guild of Carillonneurs in North America (GCNA) is a professional association of carillonneurs in North America, dedicated to the advancement of the art, literature, and science of the carillon. It was founded in Ottawa, Canada, in 1936 by American and Canadian carillonneurs so that they could keep better contact and develop the musicality of the instrument. It publishes sheet music, two periodicals, and instrument design standards; holds an annual congress for members to share ideas and developments; administers music examinations for its members; and offers grants for various activities concerning the carillon.