Lowell Ringers Toll the Bells

“You know, it’s bells. You can’t really play them quietly.” So says Harry W. Hild ’16 of the Lowell House Society of Russian Bell Ringers, a small group of students responsible for ringing Lowell House’s bells every Sunday. For over half a century, the society has worked to expand campus-wide knowledge and appreciation of the 17 bronze bells housed in Lowell’s bell tower. This has led the group to travel to Moscow to learn from master bell ringers and to develop a musical repertoire both traditional and modern.

Lowell House’s original bells were personally given in 1930 to Abbott Lawrence Lowell by his friend Charles Richard Crane, who purchased them at scrap metal prices from the Russian government. After lengthy negotiations, the original bells were returned to the Danilov monastery in Moscow in 2008 and replaced by intricate replicas that mimic the religious icons and inscriptions of the originals. Mother Earth, the largest bell in the collection, weighs over 13 tons and features images of St. Daniel and Alexander Nevsky.

It takes a great deal of musical talent to ring the bells properly, so every other year, a Russian monk travels to Lowell House to teach the bell ringers new skills. This spring, the Danilov Monastery’s Hierodeacon Roman Ogrzykov will come to conduct a master class for the society, which visited him in Moscow last summer. “We didn’t have the tourist experience,” Hild says. “We got access to places in Russia that most Russians don’t get to see.” Dylan F. Perese ’16, another of member of the society, says the group was given the red carpet treatment by their Russian hosts: “We got to ring the bells in Red Square, right next to the Kremlin…. All the bell towers in Russia were slightly different, but what is the same is the warmth and compassion that we received from each bell ringer.”

With help from the monks’ teaching, the society has been able to improve their technique and expand their musical selections. While they still maintain the tradition of ringing out Yale’s (usually losing) score from Harvard-Yale on the aptly named Bell of Famine, Pestilence, and Despair, in recent years, the bell ringers have favored more modern tunes. “We can play ‘Call Me Maybe.’ We used to play ‘Bad Romance’ a lot. But I think it’s time to update,” Hild says. Other songs in the bell ringers’ repertoire include “Concerning Hobbits” from “The Lord of the Rings” score, Elton John’s “Crocodile Rock,” and the traditional “Simple Gifts” and “Amazing Grace.” Todd E. Jones ’16, one of the group’s newest ringers, says that he was drawn to the society by one song in particular. “I heard them playing ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’ one day, and I thought, ‘I need to get up there.’”

Though Jones is a resident of Lowell House, membership in the society is open to all undergraduates. Beginning in the fall, prospective bell ringers can start attending bell ringing sessions every Sunday at 1 p.m. and can receive admission into the society if they stick with it until Russian Orthodox Easter. While some river residents may dread hearing the bells’ peals on Sundays, society president Virginia R. Marshall ’15, a Crimson Arts editor, encourages them to give the bells a chance. “People really hate the bells. They’re very loud and it’s hard to make them sound great. But if they could go up there and see [them], their perspective would change.”