Nora Violet Johnston was an English carillonneur and inventor, and one of only two female carillonneurs active in England during the first half of the twentieth century.
Johnston at the Jerusalem International YMCA carillon in 1933
A carillon ( KARR-ə-lon, kə-RIL-yən) is a pitched percussion instrument that is played with a keyboard and consists of at least 23 bells. The bells are cast in bronze, hung in fixed suspension, and tuned in chromatic order so that they can be sounded harmoniously together. They are struck with clappers connected to a keyboard of wooden batons played with the hands and pedals played with the feet. Often housed in bell towers, carillons are usually owned by churches, universities, or municipalities. They can include an automatic system through which the time is announced and simple tunes are played throughout the day.
A carillonneur plays the 56-bell carillon of the Plummer Building, Rochester, Minnesota, US
The 56-bell carillon of Saint Joseph's Oratory, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Console of the carillon at the Church of the Sacred Heart of Cholet [fr] in Maine-et-Loire, France
View of the bells and transmission system of the 49-bell Aarschot Peace Carillon [nl] in Belgium