There is music in the air, thanks to David Stone '06 and Ed Moulton '37.
Stone, a first-year student, is at the console of the College's chimes at the top of Memorial Chapel. Moulton, who played the same chimes some sixty-five years ago, is the man who made the thrice-weekly concerts possible.
“I'm honored to be doing this,” said Stone, who works the levers on the eleven-note “chimola” to ring out such tunes as “My Country Tis of Thee,” “Ode to Old Union,” and “Amazing Grace.” (The
chimola has eleven wooden handles, or levers, that Stone presses down to strike a note. The levers are connected to metal rods that extend upward about fifteen feet to where the bells are.)
Stone climbs the steep, dark stairs to the chapel belfry to play each Monday and Wednesday between 12:30 and 12:50 p.m., and Friday afternoons. He also plays during special College events.
Though the bells toll on the quarter hour, it has been more than thirty years since there has been a regular chime player on campus. It seems likely that Peter Smith '70 was the last regular. Smith, who has performed chimes concerts at a number of alumni events, showed Stone the ropes last fall.
Stone, an economics major and music minor who makes money playing piano at weddings and parties, became interested in the chimes when he heard “First Watch,” a composition by Professor Hilary Tann, performed on the carillon at Albany City Hall. He soon received scores for some fifty tunes–including eight Union songs–that Moulton transposed in the scale of F just for the Union chimes.
Moulton was paid $150 by President Dixon Ryan Fox in 1937 for
a year of service at the chimes. He recalls hearing the 9:45 bells and racing to the belfry in time to play a few tunes to call students to 10 a.m. chapel. “I must have missed it a few times, or been late due to snow, but nobody ever called me on it,” recalls Moulton, who went on to a career as an accountant and a lifelong hobby as a musician (including the directorship of the Schenectady Light Opera).
Moulton played the chimes at his 65th ReUnion last June. “The stairs were steeper than I remember, and at the end of he day
the palms of my hands were sore,” he said. “But it was such fun.”
Stone is collecting a repertoire of songs from Moulton and
Smith, and he is transposing a few tunes himself. He
welcomes suggestions from both on-campus and
off-campus listeners.