Greetings.  I write as an individual member of the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America.  Yesterday, US-based leaders in my Guild issued the following statement to the Guild's Canadian members:



Given recent political developments in the US, we've felt it important to reach out and affirm that you and the Canadian carillon culture have always been and will continue to be integral to the North American carillon culture and to the GCNA. From North America's first well-tuned carillon arriving in Toronto in 1922 to the GCNA's founding in Ottawa in 1936 and all of the exemplary Canadian carillonists and GCNA officers who have contributed along the way, the Canadian carillon culture has been inextricably linked with the American one.

We welcome any of your feedback or suggestions for how the GCNA can remain a truly North American entity, and one that's as fully inclusive of Canadians as possible. The ongoing heritage music committee project to typeset and publish many of Ă‰milien Allard's previously unpublished pieces is certainly a point of progress. A selection of the first batch of these pieces will be performed at this year's Congress. 



I welcome this statement as an expression of international solidarity.  I hope that the North American Guild of Change Ringers is undertaking similar expressions.

Thanks for reading,

David Maker
Ellington, Connecticut