Percival Price

Frank Percival Price, carillonneur, campanologist, composer (b at Toronto 7 Oct 1901; d at Ann Arbor, Mich 10 Oct 1985). The first non-European graduate of the renowned Beiaardschool for carillonneurs in Mechelen, Belgium, Price became Canada's first Dominion carillonneur when the instrument he helped design for the Peace Tower of the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa was installed in 1927. Price wrote The St. Lawrence Symphony in 1932-33 and this work received several performances after its first at the Toronto Prom concert in July 1934 in North America and Europe.

Devoted to bells and their music, he became an international authority on campanology, initiating reforms and innovations in design and performance practice. From 1939 to 1972 he taught at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he was also university carillonneur. A brilliant recitalist, Price played carillons the world over. As composer and arranger, he contributed many hundreds of works to his instrument's repertoire. Price donated his extensive research on bells and carillons along with his papers to Library and Archives Canada.