Fri 12/24 @ 7PM
There are less than 200 cast-bell carillons in the U.S., and one of them — the only one in Cleveland — is the Alexander McGaffin Carillon at the Church of the Covenant on the Case Western Reserve University campus, featuring 47 bells (The largest in the U.S., at the University of Chicago’s Rockefeller Chapel, has 72 bells).
The whole community is invited to a free concert performed on these delightful bells on Christmas Eve at 7pm, preceding its 7:30pm Christmas Eve Candlelight Worship Service. And of course you’re welcome to stay for that as well. The Church of the Covenant is a diverse, inclusive, Presbyterian congregation. “We act boldly and compassionately to serve people who are hungry, oppressed, imprisoned, or poor,” they say. You know, like person whose birth they’re celebrating — not Santa or Frosty the Snowman — taught, over and over.
There’s free parking at the church, which is on Euclid Avenue just west of the Mayfield Road intersection.