Tiffany Ng

An energetic advocate of contemporary music, Tiffany Ng has premiered or revived over two dozen pieces by emerging and established composers from Ken Ueno to Kaikhosru Sorabji, pioneered models for interactive "crowdsourced" carillon performances and environmental data-driven sound installations with Greg Niemeyer, Chris Chafe, Ed Campion, and Ken Goldberg, and through her composer collaborations significantly increased the American repertoire for carillon and electronics. Her concert career has taken her to festivals in a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, and North America, including Berkeley's 2015 Campanile Centennial, Stanford's 2014 Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) anniversary festival, the 23rd International Carillon Festival at Bok Tower Gardens, Florida, the 2014 International Carillon Festival Barcelona, and the 2008 Post-Congress Festival of the World Carillon Federation.

Dr. Ng's previous positions include visiting professor of music history at St. Olaf College, associate carillonist at the University of California, Berkeley, and instructor of carillon at the University of Rochester. Her musicology dissertation, "The Heritage of the Future: Historical Keyboards, Technology, and Modernism," explores the carillon and organ in terms of music technology, the Early Music movement, and the Cold War in America and the Netherlands, drawing on media studies, urban planning, legal history, and the history of military electronics to reevaluate the Organ Reform Movement and the postwar use of carillons as diplomatic and urban planning technologies.

Current Work:

"A Carillon Lab for the 21st Century: A Yearlong Carillon Initiative"

Bells sonify the passing of time and create an auditory space of collective listening. At the University of Michigan, the ringing of the Westminster Quarters offers a sonic remembrance of two centuries of campus life every fifteen minutes. Tiffany Ng and her collaborator John Granzow are curating the soundscape of the university's 2017 bicentennial with a campanology symposium, a series of innovative concerts, and sound installations centering on the Lurie and Burton Tower carillons. Some artistic works explore public listening and how it is transformed in contemporary modes of mediated experience, while others invite new modes of audience interactivity. Combining Michigan's iconic towers with audio synthesis, sound diffusion, virtual space, and interdisciplinary scholarship, the series aims to create a third-century campus soundtrack of tradition and innovation.

Over the course of the year, their events explore the past, present, and future of U-M's most iconic public musical tradition. The first half of the series celebrates U-M's foundational importance to the field of campanology, the study of bells. U-M established the world's first university carillon program and first master of music degree in campanology, and continues to offer one the world's leading carillon degree programs. To continue Michigan's role into the twenty-first century, they are convening Resonance and Remembrance: An Interdisciplinary Campanology Symposium. Selected papers will be published in the inaugural issue of the peer-reviewed "Journal of Campanology," for which Ng serves on the editorial board.

Research Area Keyword(s):

music, musicology, soundscapes, bells, carillon