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Carillon News

June 21, 2006
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Brian Swager is carillon editor of THE DIAPASON.

Nunc Dimittis: Jim Angell

James B. Angell, University Carillonneur and Professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University from 1960–1991, died in San Francisco on February 13. He was 81 and had been afflicted with Parkinson’s disease. His wife of 50 years, Elizabeth (Betty Belle), died in 1999.
Angell’s engineering research focused on the application of integrated circuit technology to the fabrication of sensors for biomedical instrumentation and the generation and manipulation of musical sounds with digital systems. Developing miniature transducers to measure force, pressure and motion, Angell was a pioneer in a field today known as microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). He was awarded emeritus status upon retirement.
Born on Staten Island, New York, Angell received bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Angell began his study of carillon in 1952 with Lawrence Curry of Philadelphia, under whom he served as carillonneur of the First Methodist Church of Germantown for eight years. He became a carillonneur member of the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America during the Ottawa congress in 1967. Angell was well known on the Stanford campus as the university’s official carillonneur, playing the 35-bell (now 48) Michiels carillon in Hoover Tower from 1960 to 1991. In 1964, he played the carillon for former President Herbert Hoover on his 90th birthday.
On 17 October 1989, Angell was on the 13th floor of Hoover Tower, where the carillon was at the time, changing his shoes to get ready to play a recital for a small group. His student Timothy Zerlang was there as well at 5:04 pm when the Loma Prieta earthquake struck, shaking the books lining the walls into huge heaps on the floor. “I got a tremendous shot of adrenaline,” Angell told Stanford Report in a 2002 interview. “I thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience.”
Angell was succeeded in the position of University Carillonneur by his former student Timothy Zerlang.

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