There was an extensive interview with my former student, Joey Fala, in the current issue of the Iolani Bulletin, the publication of Iolani School where I was the Chapel Organist for twenty years and where I met Joey when he was in fifth grade. Take a look at the Tag Cloud—either in the column to the right if you are sitting at a desktop computer or at the very bottom if you’re viewing this on a mobile device. You’ll see that Joey Fala has been tagged in more of my posts than anyone else! I have been most fortunate to be in touch with him all these years and in fact, will be seeing him very soon when he visits Hawaii with his wife, Sarah.

Text by Beau Flemister ’X01 and Cathy Lee Chong
Photography by Veasey Conway

A graduate of the Yale University School of Music, Joseph Fala ’10 serves as University Presbyterian Church Director of Music and Organist at UNC Chapel Hill, and as carillonneur a t Duke University Chapel. At a young age, his affinity and passion for the organ were evident. In college and graduate school, he went on to win several scholarships and awards, and he has performed across the country, in such venues as St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, Trinity Church Boston, Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral in Los Angeles, Harvard University’s Busch Hall, and the Washington National Cathedral.

Often you can hear the sound of a carillon from over half a mile away. Something about that melodic, bronze resonance of giant bells not only draws you toward its sound—it transforms you. Regardless of one’s background or creed, a carillon’s call is enigmatically soothing, jubilant. It is the sound of hope. Playing the carillon, a medieval instrument often built into some cathedral bell towers, requires striking oak batons with closed fists. The sound, the space, the technique to operate one: all of the above fascinated Joseph Fala ’10, Duke University’s current carillonneur. Perpetuating the tradition of playing the 50-bell carillon for at least 15-minutes every weekday at Duke—a tradition that hasn’t paused in 90 years—Fala keeps the sound of hope reverberating through the quad, pandemic notwithstanding.“

The carillon marks the rhythm of the day, so continuing to play the bells gives some sort of continuity when so many other things have changed,” says Fala. “I see the carillon as not only being the voice of the chapel, but also of the university. at shared experience of listening together connects us to each other and to God.”

Recently described as an “essential worker” by the Wall Street Journal for his craft, Fala
spoke with us about playing ancient instruments in modern times.

‘Iolani School Bulletin: Is your main instrument the carillon or the organ?
Joseph Fala: The organ is actually my main instrument. I started playing when I was a student at ‘Iolani, beginning lessons with Katherine Crosier, the St. Alban’s Chapel organist, when I was in fifth grade. So that has always been my passion. While I took some time off from the organ, when I graduated from ‘Iolani to study architecture, I made a return to music as I did my master’s in organ and have been doing music ever since. The carillon is a more recent development for me. While at Yale, I learned the basics from the student-run Guild of Carillonneurs. There’s some crossover in the technique in that both hands and feet are required for forward motion. When I came to Duke to serve as one of the organists at the chapel, the carillonneur of 53 years announced his retirement and they needed somebody to step in. I was the logical solution.

‘ISB: Awesome. And what attracted you to those instruments?
JF: With the organ, I think it was the huge sound and the fact that this giant instrument with all these keyboards and pedals and knobs is controlled by one person. I remember first hearing and seeing the organ when I was in pre-school and asking my parents what it was. My family went to a church that didn’t have an organ so they had no idea what I was talking about. I began piano lessons and enjoyed that for a while, but it wasn’t until I was in fifth grade that I re-discovered the organ when I joined the choir at ‘Iolani under the direction of Mr. Alexander (John Alexander). Each Friday, before we had to sing in chapel, I would show up early to watch the organist practice. One day, my Language Arts teacher, Cindy Scheinert, said “Why don’t we set up a date for you to meet the organist?” I had found sheet music of Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D minor” on the Internet and brought a copy with me to play on the chapel organ—I later learned how amusing she found that! She helped me to get a scholarship for organ lessons from the American Guild of Organists and the rest was history.

As for the carillon, I hardly knew of the instrument’s existence until I moved away to the mainland for college. There are no carillons in Hawai‘i.

‘ISB: Wow. So how do you actually play the carillon? It seems pretty unusual.
JF: The instrument is played from a room 150 feet up in the tower, from something resembling an organ console. Instead of keys, there are wood batons resembling broom handles that are depressed with a closed fist. The batons are connected directly to fifty chromatically tuned bells above via steel cables. There’s also a pedalboard similar to
the one on an organ.

‘ISB: Yeah, it’s a fairly medieval instrument?
JF: Absolutely. There were carillons resembling what I play on today as early as the 1500s. It was the original public music. I think one of the things that’s really interesting to me is that the carillon is possibly the loudest musical instrument before electronic amplification was developed. It was designed for an entire town to hear. The mechanism has evolved slightly, but it’s still a completely mechanical instrument; no electronic mechanisms, no pneumatic systems. When you play into a baton, there’s a haptic connection to the clapper inside a bell. While you’re not actually swinging the whole bell, the clappers which move can weigh as much as 500 pounds as in the case of our largest six-ton bell. So you have to exert considerable force to play. It’s a very physical instrument.

ISB: Right. So what is it about those bells that’s so soothing and beautiful, regardless of one’s religious background?
JF: I think there’s something inherently centering and transcendent about the sonorities, especially in those impressively large bells. Across cultures, bells are often associated with religious rites and rituals. Think of Buddhist singing bowls and temple bells. These sounds channel prayer or meditation and, in some beliefs, offer healing. And of course in Christianity, there is a long history of bells in church towers calling people to worship from the English change-ringing bells to the Russian Orthodox zvons. There definitely is a deep sense of rootedness in tradition that echoes from the past when listening to these same sounds that our ancestors heard 500 years ago. It’s a sound that intrigues and inspires us in the same way we are awed by gothic architecture and the great cathedrals built and inhabited by the faithful and spiritually devout. And then there’s also that charm in listening to music that is purely mechanical and real in a day and age where everything is electronic and simulated.

‘ISB: Sounds like it! Earlier this year, you were featured in a Wall Street Journal article, and they portrayed you as an essential worker and unexpected hero. Do you yourself consider playing the carillon essential work?
I definitely wouldn’t call ringing bells heroic work. There are a lot of people doing far more important things. Doctors, scientists . . .

‘ISB: Ah, don’t sell yourself short.
JF: [laughs] Yeah, well, I appreciate the sentiment. I think part of what people have latched onto is the tradition and symbolism. The chapel is a spiritual beacon and the carillon is its outward voice, so I do think it means a lot to people that the music endures when the rest of the world is seemingly stopped. While the chapel has been closed through lockdown, the university requested that inside lighting be left on so that light would emanate outward through the stained glass in the night—it’s an incredible visual sign of hope. I think that the carillon continuing to play, even for an empty campus, is that same image painted in sound. The carillon is also now for the first time being live-streamed daily so people everywhere can tune in and hear the bells.

‘ISB: How do you think ‘Iolani affected your work as a musician?
JF: Well, there were definitely key players who inspired and supported me along the way. Obviously, the chapel organist, Katherine Crosier; lower school music teacher, Norma Chun; and choir director John Alexander. The late John McCreary, ‘Iolani choir director before John Alexander, was also a huge influence. Mr. Mac accompanied all of our choir concerts at St. Andrew’s Cathedral. He was known as the organ Jedi on the islands and even built a theater pipe organ in his house. When I was in fifth grade, he invited all of us organists over for the silent film the Hunchback of Notre Dame in his living room while he improvised the score. That’ll always be one of those magical memories from my childhood. And there’s my Language Arts teacher from fifth grade, Cindy Scheinert, who initially connected me to my to-be organ teacher after I wrote about the organ in a poem, and she told Kathy, “I have this student who has this obsession with the organ . . .

[Editor’s Note: Read my very first post about Joey Fala here: The Boy Who Loved the Organ]