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John
Gouwens joined the faculty of the Culver Academies
in the fall of 1980. He serves as Organist and Carillonneur of The Academies, and in addition teaches
piano students at the schools. (From 1996 through
spring 2004, he also was Choir Director of The Academies.) He
has released four recordings of the organ and carillon at Culver. In
the fall of 2002, he was appointed Visiting Lecturer in
Carillon at Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana. The
following link takes you to the schedule of carillon
performances at Ball State.
Gouwens is noted for his improvisation skills, on the
organ and on the carillon, and has given presentations for
several chapters of the American Guild of Organists and for
annual congresses of the
Guild of Carillonneurs in North
America on this subject. He also won a carillon
improvisation contest at the 1983 GCNA congress, the first
such competition held by that organization. In 2004, he hosted the annual congress of the GCNA at Culver, having
done so also in 1985. Gouwens is also active on the chapter level in the American Guild of Organists, where is a past dean of both the
Saint Joseph Valley Chapter and the Fort Wayne Chapter.
He has written many works for carillon as well as several
pieces for choir. He was awarded First Prize in a
composition competition for a choir piece for the
bicentennial of the city of Fort Wayne, Indiana. He also was
awarded the "Jef Denyn Prize" (first prize) in a
carillon composition competition organized by the Royal
Carillon School in Mechelen, Belgium. Two of Culver's
traditional songs, "Culver Daughters, Sing Thy
Praise," and "Treasured Memory," were
composed by Mr. Gouwens. More recently, for the occasion of
the centennial of Culver Summer Camps, Mr. Gouwens was
commissioned to write a new song (words and music),
"Leaders for Tomorrow." In 2010, he was commissioned by the Lexington, Kentucky chapter to compose a work in memory of their colleague - a distinguished carillonneur and composer - John Courter. Gouwens premiered the resulting work, "Suite No. 3" for carillon, at the Lexington Regional AGO convention, on the
carillon at Berea College, where Courter served with distinction until his untimely death.
Mr. Gouwens has garnered many accolades as a performer over the
years. He was a finalist four times in the National Organ
Competition at First Presbyterian Church in Fort Wayne, and
won First Prize in the 1990 International Organ Competition
organized by the University of Michigan. He has played organ
recitals at many noted venues around the United States and
has played carillon recitals there and abroad. In July and August of
2012, he made his seventh concert tour of Europe, playing recitals throughout The Netherlands, as well as in France, Spain, and Belgium.
He studied organ and carillon at Indiana University
(Bloomington), the University
of Michigan, and the University
of Kansas, holding degrees in organ performance from the
latter two schools. He was raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
His instructors included Richard Carlson,
Clyde
Holloway,
Robert Clark, and the late Robert Glasgow in organ, and Albert Gerken
in carillon.
He is very active in the Guild of Carillonneurs in North
America, where he serves as chairman of the Johan Franco
Composition Committee (which commissions new music for
carillon and organizes composition
competitions). He also
serves on the Music Publications Committee. He is very active as an editor
and arranger of music for GCNA publications, as well as a
contributing composer. He has performed at numerous
congresses of the GCNA, as well as at several carillon
festivals and a congress of the World Carillon Federation.
In the summer of 2002, he presented a recital on the organ
of the Chapel of the Resurrection at Valparaiso University
as part of the Chicago
convention of the Organ Historical
Society. He performed both on the organ and on the
carillon for the 2007 Indianapolis Convention of the Organ Historical Society.
He performed on the carillon again in
Cleveland (2009) and
Chicago (2012) for
conventions of the OHS.
In
2003, Mr. Gouwens completed a method book for teaching
beginning students on the carillon. The book, "Playing
the Carillon: An Introductory Method," is the first
American carillon method book. It underwent considerable revision and expansion in 2010. It is published by
the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America, and is in use worldwide. Some excerpts
from the book may be viewed
online.
In 2012, Gouwens wrote a textbook for teaching Campanology
(the study of bells), published by the
North American Carillon School. Portions of that book
may also be viewed online. 
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