J. Samuel Hammond Carillon Recital: Mitchell Eithun

Mitchell Eithun, Duke Chapel Carillonneur

The J. Samuel Hammond Carillon Recitals are performed on the Chapel's 50-bell carillon, and may be enjoyed al fresco from the beauty of Abele Quad. This recital will be presented rain or shine.

Parking is available on a first-come-first-served basis in the Bryan Center garage at 125 Science Drive. ADA parking is available in the Bryan Center Surface Lot at the same address.

The musician for this recital is Mitchell Eithun, a Duke University Chapel carillonneur. Eithun first encountered the carillon in 2019 while a student at Michigan State University, where he took lessons with late carillonneur Ray McClellan. Since then, he has visited and played over twenty carillons in the United States and two in Scotland. He is an active church music composer and has over eighty published pieces of handbell music and has received commissions from community and church handbell ensembles. He is also the founding director of Bell Durham, a community handbell ensemble in Durham, North Carolina, and he serves as the Handbell Editor at Beckenhorst Press. Eithun is an associate member of the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America and a seminar instructor for the Handbell Musicians of America.

Eithun's recital features a wide range of music, including:

* "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" by J.S. Bach

* "Wayfaring Stranger," a folk hymn

* "Golden" from the movie "KPop Demon Hunters"

Duke Chapel's fifty-bell carillon is among the oldest and largest such instruments in the American South. Both the instrument and the recital series are named in honor of the late J. Samuel Hammond (1947-2021), University Carillonneur Emeritus, who played Duke's carillon from 1964 until his retirement in 2018.