Earth Day at 50 Teach-Out

Pamela Ruiter-Fennstra, Carillonist & Carillon Instructor at the University of Michigan, talks about the power of performance and the arts in making meaningful contributions to the way we experience sustainability.

As Visiting Carillonist at the University of Michigan for 2019–2020, Dr. Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra initiated a diversity, equity, and inclusion Global Rings project with the Carillon Studio. Students collected folk tunes, stories, and issues from around the world, and Ruiter-Feenstra taught them how to compose and arrange on those stories and tunes for carillon, to diversify the repertoire, deepen understanding and appreciation of global cultures, and to welcome audiences world-wide. Several of the new works feature celebration of nature and lamentations for destructive treatment of Mother Earth. Today, we feature two Global Rings carillon compositions: Llanto de Tepuyes (Tepuyes’ Tears), composed by Marielba Núñez, a Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellow at U-M and Winter Snow Wind Song, a Swinomish tune arranged by Xiaoying Pu, a third year Ph.D. student in Computer Science & Engineering.