Community
Carillon instruments and the carillonneurs who play them can be found all around the world. The instruments are commonly housed in bell towers—often owned by churches, universities, or municipalities—but also exist as mobile carillons and “chamber” instruments. Carillonneurs and carillon enthusiasts form an international community, sharing compositions, arrangements, and historical and technical expertise with each other.
The Guild of Carillonneurs in North America is a professional organization dedicated to the promotion of the carillon art in North America. Its members include performers, composers, bell founders, carillon builders, and carillon enthusiasts, as well as churches, universities and other institutions with carillons of all kinds. In September 1936, the Second Congress of Carillonneurs in North America was called at the Houses of Parliament in Ottawa, Canada; it was at this meeting that the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America was established as a central organization with a constitution.
The World Carillon Federation is an organization of guilds of carillonneurs and carillon associations. Founded in Douai, France, in 1974 as a non-profit organization, it serves as a liaison among carillon associations to defend and promote the interests of carillonneurs and develop the art of the carillon.
The Network of War Memorial and Peace Carillons, which includes the Peace Tower Carillon, was created in 2014 on the initiative of the carillonneurs of the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands; the University of Leuven, Belgium; the belfry of Ypres, Belgium; and the University of Toronto, Canada. The WMPC has a threefold mission: keeping alive the memory of the thousands of people who are memorialized by war memorial and peace carillons; honouring the initiators and benefactors of these carillons and the persons who have maintained and played them over the years; and promoting the ideal of peace in general.