- [Narrator] This is a special presentation of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

(bells chiming) - [Joshua] There are only four Ars Sonoras in the world, three of them are in France which makes this one here at UT the only one in the us.

I am the first and only Ars Sonorist in the United States.

(bells chiming) So I believe it was about 30 years ago when our president, Dr. Vaughn, and one of our biggest supporters here at UT, John Sykes, started talking about the possibility of adding bells to the Sykes Chapel.

- When we first started speaking about a chapel, if you ever deal with Dr. Vaughn, everything has to be clearly thought through.

- And he said that he'd like to help me with the chapel, but he added, "I'd like some bells on it."

Well at the time, neither one knew fully what that meant in chapel design or bells or bell tower design, but we launched into 10 years of researching bells and bell towers and carol lawns all over the world, and it ultimately led us to the Paccard family in France.

(bright music) - [Philippe] My name is Philippe Paccard, the head of the Paccard Bell Foundry, making bells since 1796 'til today, and we hope that we'll continue making bells for the next centuries.

There is something common with all those generation of Paccard.

It is always the curiosity of developing new bells, beautiful bells, and the research of excellence in every aspect of our process.

- [Ronald] Each bell is handcrafted from its master craftsman bell founders.

So that means from the development of the mold to the actual pouring of the molten bronze and putting it in the molds, and then taking it out of the molds later on after it's secured and doing some of the final finish work, all of this to prepare a bell that will last forever.

(bright music) Well during the course of our research, we found that in many cases, the bell towers or carol lawns were not being played, so they were often setting idle.

In a sense, it seemed like it was a dying art.

- So we asked the Paccards if they could help us solve that problem.

- I remember telling Dr. Vaughn that we had created something new that we call Ars Sonora, which would bring so much more opportunities than a simple bell tower.

- [Phillipe] It's a combination of two Latin words, Ars which mean art, Sonora sound out of sound.

It's a creation that Paccard invented.

Artistically speaking, we could consider that Ars Sonora is a musical sculpture, making something unique that will be a masterpiece of art.

Ars Sonora goes further with the fact that you can play music either automatically or have the music being played by a musician.

- [Ronald] So they offered a new technology that would electronically tie into a keyboard where each key was tied into a bell note.

This offered a really important advantage that anyone could play bell music through this new technology.

And I knew if we were to build a grand bell tower instrument, that it would be one where the music of the bells would be really important.

- Well, I think the Ars Sonora, it's one of those once in a lifetime projects that I think people that go into architecture and construction kind of dream about doing.

- So we are in a very exciting phase of the process.

(upbeat music) For the last nine months, we have been testing the bells, testing the dynamic strikers, building up the software to control the dynamic strikers with the music.

- [Scott] Also getting the cabling and the wiring installed in these individual rings.

- This was the first time this has ever been done.

Working with Paccard and all of the engineers to Satil for the structure and the stainless steel expertise.

It was exciting to encounter things that we didn't expect because it allowed us to come together and create really unique solutions together as a team.

(upbeat music continues) Probably one of the biggest problems that we encountered was there is a limit to how far the cabling can run and still be within the parameters of the delay that a musician can play live with.

- If there's a delay between the pianist playing the note on the keyboard versus when the bell actually rings, it could disrupt that musician from being able to play that piece.

So we worked with Philippe and his son, Thomas.

They had the bells pre-mounted.

They connected those to keyboards and we were going through bell by bell, tuning and testing every single bell.

- [Phillipe] We knew it would be very difficult, but that has happened really well.

It's so exciting.

It's really a moving moment, nine months period of time.

It's great.

- [Bryan] Where we are now is the bringing it all together into what now is a sculpture, and we're here watching that happen before our eyes.

- [Scott] So what's important to us right now is when this prefabricated structure shows up to Tampa, does it all fit together?

(upbeat music) - [Bryan] We were lucky enough to be there as they were lifting the last piece in place on the top of this Ars Sonora.

I'll tell you, I did not expect to be as emotional as I was.

- [Scott] When I saw that sculpture standing here in France, just the sheer scale and the size and the beauty and the complexity of everything was just, it was mind blowing.

It definitely caught me by surprise.

- [Bryan] It was one of the most proud moments, I've probably had in my career.

(bright music) - [Scott] After we witnessed the assembly of the sculpture in France, it took them about a week to disassemble it, loaded into the containers, nine containers, then trucked from Chambray to Versailles where it got loaded onto a container ship.

It was then at sea, which was supposed to be about four weeks.

It ended up taking about six weeks because of everything from seas to logistics, port issues, that sort of stuff.

The interesting thing with the ship is, they actually had a tracker app on the ship.

So they sent us a link to it and we were able to watch it make its trip from France to Italy, Spain, across the Atlantic, south of Haiti, up to New York, and then down to Miami.

And then once it landed in Miami, the nine containers arrived on time, on schedule, on sequence, and then we were pretty excited to see the first truck roll into campus.

(bright music) (people cheering) (birds chirping) When the trucks finally started rolling into campus, there was a feeling of, probably a feeling of relief, if you will, from, you know, the team kind of seeing all that hard work come to fruition.

(bright music) When the nine containers arrived on site, we knew exactly what to expect at that point.

(bright music continues) We immediately set the first three columns and then we spent the next week doing ground assembly, which was kind of piecing together the rings, the almonds, you know, the various components that could be preassembled on the ground.

After that week, we were able to then assemble the entire sculpture in four days.

That process took us four weeks in France.

So we definitely learned a lot from that process and it went very smoothly in the US because of it.

(bright music continues) When we topped this project out, it was a surreal moment.

When the Sykes and the Vaughns and the rest of the project team were sitting there, watching this final piece be placed, it was nice just to take that moment to pause and reflect on everything we've accomplished and just marvel at this sculpture that we'd created.

You know, when you look at this sculpture, you look at what we've done here, it takes a team that cares to create something like this.

- And you can tell by looking at Cyril, how much love and care the whole Paccard Foundry has for their instruments.

Watching him was so emotional because it's one of his grandest moments in his professional career.

Okay.

(laughs) - [John] To see the structural people who had worked in building this for years, weep.

To see it finally come to fruition, it was just unbelievable.

Couldn't imagine it.

- [Ronald] You know, it's just a great, shared feeling that we have done this even though we got a bit more to go.

(bright music) (bell chiming) - [Thomas] Here, we've got this sculpture outside in a big plaza, so we still have a lot of adjustment, a lot of tuning of the responses of the keyboard.

- This work has to be done with the musicians, of course.

Hey!

- Howdy.

- Hello.

- Nice to see you!

- Nice to see you!

The time has arrived.

- [Grigorios] When I first saw the shape and the belts, it was incredible.

It has transformed the campus, I think.

- Everything ready.

I think you have to test and let us know.

- It was pretty amazing to hear the sound, you know, such a beautiful sound.

And I tried it to play fast notes and to have a keyboard that connects to the bells and it's so responsive.

You can do dynamics.

That was unbelievable.

I didn't expect anything like it.

- Well done.

- I love it.

(bells chiming) - You can hear the right hand?

- Yeah, it's much better over there.

- I'm adding a lot of velocity.

So you need to put too much.

I feel that I have to play it too loud to hear it from here, but what does it sound like out there?

Play it right in here.

(bells chiming) - I noticed that when you walk around, it's a different sound sometimes and you try to find the best spot.

There's several ones because it has to do with the place and the buildings, you know, they create a resonance.

- [Phillipe] So we asked Thomas to use the software develop to rearrange, rebalance this work.

- [Ryan] And he just was able to take his laptop and make those adjustments right there on the spot, which that was really fun to see.

The technology to make this possible is really outstanding.

- Now I can play soft.

It responds more to the soft touch now than it did before.

- Awesome.

- Yeah, it's perfect.

- Okay, I'm glad.

- Thank you.

Yeah, I'm happy.

- [Thomas] It's a musical instrument, so the ultimate judge are the musician and they judge well, so we are happy.

- [Scott] We now have our musical department set up.

They now have the tools that they need to learn how to play this instrument and it's gonna culminate into the first performance and we're really excited to hear it.

- [Renee] We are really excited about the students and faculty, getting ready for that first concert.

It will just be a huge crescendo on campus.

- I can't wait.

(bright music) - [Reporter] The University of Tampa is getting ready to rock the bells.

- [Reporter 2] A new sculpture at the heart of the University of Tampa.

- [Reporter 3] It's called an Ars Sonora, the largest such musical sculpture in the world.

- [Reporter 4] And the first built in the US.

It was first constructed in France.

- [Reporter 5] The bells will be played publicly for the first time tomorrow.

- [Reporter 6] And we can't wait to hear it and you know the students will love that.

- When it came to figuring out the program for this opening concert, how do you select the music for something like this?

(bright music) I really want to show off the collaborative abilities of this instrument, and I thought, what better way to do that than to also show off the musicians we have here on faculty, all of whom are extremely well respected professionals?

- Magnifique!

(Grigorios speaking in foreign language) - [Joshua] The most important thing that we're trying to work out is balance.

It's that if I put too many notes down here.

It's the sound that the brass is making, being overwhelmed by the sound of the Ara Sonora.

Am I playing too many notes?

Am I overwhelming the singers?

Am I not supporting them enough?

There's been a lot of experimenting and we've definitely had trial and error and through that, we've found the best possible solutions.

(bright music continues) - That's it.

When you come down on that B five major chord, it sounds like a B minor.

- Yeah right.

Yeah.

(laughs) How am I feeling right now?

It's a mix of a lot of different emotions.

I am so excited, also a little nervous.

- A great emotion, I'm a little nervous.

I'm sure that everything will work fine.

- I think the culmination is something that this community has been excited for, for so long.

- It's incredible and I just can't wait to hear it and to see all of the students enjoying and our entire community.

- We've seen it now for a few months, you know, the kids have gotten used to that, but no one has really seen it in action yet.

So I'm excited to see what people think.

- [Host] Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

We are pleased to welcome all of you here for this evening's concert.

This will be the first of many performances that will showcase this one of a kind instrument.

(bright music) - [Speaker] To be able to have something like the Ars Sonora in the city of Tampa is something that we should all be incredibly, incredibly proud of.

(bright music continues) - [Host] Please rise and join me for the National Anthem performed Ethan Lucas with Joshua Cessna on the Ars Sonora.

(bells chiming) ♪ Oh say can you see ♪ - [Joshua] One of my goals for this concert was to just show off that variety of not just what kind of music we can play, but with whom we can also play and collaborate with.

(Hein singing indistinctly) - [Ryan] Listening to the brass, I thought it was beautiful and the Ars Sonora, it just sounds amazing.

(bright brass music playing) It makes me just love music more and more and more, every single day.

(bright music) - [Phillipe] We can see in the eyes in the way the audience behaves, that we are catching up their attention.

- It's been really cool to hear it with all the different instruments and the vocalists.

I think it's gonna offer a lot of really cool opportunities for performing.

- [Speaker 2] Yeah for sure, like now we have another performance space which is like super cool.

- We're so lucky.

- Yeah, we really are.

(bright music) - My favorite part was seeing them actually like, move.

- I love seeing them move at the end.

It was beautiful.

- Awesome.

I mean, I can't explain it.

- [Joshua] The amount of people that showed up to hear this incredible instrument is really, I think, inspiring and it gives me a lot of hope for the concerts I have planned for the future.

(bright music continues) (bells chiming) Great.

This is already a really good start.

What I would suggest is when we have these three notes here for the left hand, instead of.

Right now we're gathering interest in the students, seeing who wants to learn how to play it, who wants to perform on it.

And what's nice about- We have this energy about them in our lessons and everything, they're so excited to learn - Of the left hand, how are you finding the action to be?

- The responsiveness of it is really interesting and it's very different from like the piano where I more so want my like highest notes to be like, pushing the hardest.

Here it's like, the highest notes are gonna resonate more already.

- Yep.

- So yeah.

- [Joshua] To play on something that they won't get an opportunity to anywhere else I think is such a wonderful thing for them to be able to experience.

(bells chiming) And I love that I get the opportunity to introduce these students to the Ars Sonora and bring them in to this musical community.

Yeah.

So did you notice how when you got up to these?

Who knows where they're gonna take this in the future?

But it's just so exciting to see like, where we're starting from and, you know, where that can lead to.

(bells chiming) I think it's important to have music like this in our everyday lives.

It's something I feel is oftentimes taken for granted.

We've come up with a number of uses for it, ranging from our daily song selections to weekly performances on Fridays.

And I also have a request page that people will submit requests.

(bells chiming) Students come to me and say they look forward to the music every day.

It just sort of sparks a little bit of joy, I think.

(bells chiming) - [Speaker 3] It's just great to see the presence of Ars Sonora, to have and to enjoy and to share in memories and friendships on the University of Tampa's campus.

- [Speaker 4] It's just beautiful, just like a masterpiece to look at and to hear.

It's just a great way to get like, the UT community together in song.

- It's so special, I think, to have an instrument like this in the center of our campus, to bring everybody together and for them to have that one thing in common.

(bells chiming) (people applauding) (relaxing music) Music for many people means so many different things.

And my goal is, with the Ars Sonora, to have it become a part of the student's experience here and maybe sometime in the future, when they hear bells, it might remind them again of the University of Tampa and their time here.

- I'll never forget my time working on this project.

This is a once in a lifetime type of opportunity.

- [Anne] I hope that this Ars Sonora will bring the student in UT hope when they need it, love when they need it, and music and spirit when they need it.

- I think this is gonna become one of those moments, if you will, that I think the city of Tampa will become known for.

- To me, UT has always been a very special place and most people see that in a variety of different ways.

This adds to the specialness, so I hope it'll inspire people and add to the enjoyment on the campus.

- In years to come, perhaps a hundred years, as people listen to this bell, I hope they would be asking, "Wonder who Susan and John Sykes are?"

And if they don't know, I hope they'll say, "They must have really loved each other."

And that's what this project means to me, personally, because of my life's partner.

(bright music) (bright music continues) (bells chiming) (bells chiming) (bright music)