Carillon bells could toll as the centerpiece of a major winter/holiday street festival

One evening this winter, while paused at a stoplight in downtown Rochester, my six year old daughter and I heard, muffled though my car windows, the same thing dozens of other drivers likley heard - the faint chiming of carillon bells. It suddenly occured to me that in the dozen years I've lived in Rochester, I had yet to stop and listen to a carillon concert in its entirety.

So not only did I roll down the window to let the music in, but after the stoplight turned color I pulled the car into a parking place on 1st Street SW and we got out to listen. As is true on most winter evenings in downtown, there were very few people walking along downtown's streets. Along several city blocks, we were the only two souls on the sidewalks listening to the chiming of the carillon's bells.

My daughter wondered aloud where the music was coming from, so I pointed up to the impressive glow of Mayo's flagship, the 1928 Plummer Building, explaining what little I knew about the carillon.

As glad as I was that we had stopped, and as much as we enjoyed the brief, quarter-hour concert, I couldn't help but be a little disappointed in myself for having waited 12 long years to stop, on purpose, and take a few moments to listen to this one-of-a-kind music. The carillon, I decided, is on the short list of cultural gems that makes Rochester an unique place, much different from other Minnesota towns and cities.

I'm pretty certain that no other city in Minnesota offers carillon concerts.

Standing on this deserted street corner beneath the carillon's tolling bells, I was reminded of the last time I had been to Europe, specifically to Austria, with my family for two weeks over Christmas back in 1994. I remembered walking through downtown Vienna's lively streets a couple nights before Christmas after attending a marionette show at an opera house. Though there was a Minnesota chill in tendors stirring great black kettles of roasted chestnuts, stands selling cups of gluwein (hot, cider-like wine) and heissewurstl (inexspensive yet delicious sausages wrapped inside warm, fresh-baked bread), street musicians playing accordians and guitars, merchants outside their stands selling everything from clothing, jewelry and fine art to toys, ornaments and gourmet foodstuffs.

It was a lively, folklorish street market atmosphere that, in retrospect, was somewhat reminscent of . . . Rochester's brand-new Downtown Street Market and concerts, held every Thursday along 1st Street SW this past summer.

As its music faded, the carillon struck me as one of Rochester's grossly under-utilized cultural assets. The next day I called a Mayo number to see if they were any special carillon concerts planned during the holidays. Nope, it was the same schedule as usual, though the person did mention that the carilloner is always open to the idea of playing special concerts.

I've heard rumors that either the Farmer's Market, or the Downtown Street Market, are considering going year-round . . . .

Our arts-minded mayor, Ardelle Brede, came up with the idea for last fall's ArtsOktoberfest. . . .

The carilloner is open to the idea of special concerts. . . .

There's a brand-new outdoor plaza between the Mayo and Plummer buidlings . . . .

Downtown Minneapolis has the Holi-Dazzle parade, St. Paul its famous a winter carnival, and downtown Rochester has . . . this magicificent yet underused carillon, beneath which the sidewalks are void of people on winter nights.

I have visions of strolling through downtown, of a chill winter evening, during the week before Christmas 2006, as the carilloner, high up in his tower, is playing a longer-than-usual winter concert, with hundreds of listeners milling about the streets, down which grassroots vendors are selling their homemade wares, along with plenty of good things to eat and drink. . . .

One night it could be classical classics like Handel's Messiah or Winter from Vivaldi's Four Seasons, another night a concert geared toward kids, another night old-tyme carols and iconic holiday songs . . . .

I'm thinking that a week or so of outdoor Carillon holiday concerts, amid a festive downtown street market atmosphere, could help turn the night-time winter ghostliness of Rochester's downtown streets into a thing of the past.

Maybe one day I'll even be able to warm myself up with a cup of Austrian gluwein.