Member bio
Kimberly Schafer is a dedicated carillon performer, bell researcher, and bell advocate. She is currently carillonneur at St. Chrysostom’s Episcopal Church in Chicago, where she has reinvigorated the carillon from dormant to fully integrated within the church life. Over the past two decades, she has performed in residence at the University of Michigan, the University of Texas, Princeton University, and the University of Chicago. Kim earned her diploma with great distinction from the Royal Carillon School “Jef Denyn” in 2005 and advanced to full carillonneur member status in the GCNA in 2006. As a musicology graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin, Kim studied bell instruments at American universities, resulting in her PhD dissertation in 2010, and she began a carillon education program there. She translated André Lehr’s Campanology Textbook, which was published as a GCNA Bulletin. Kim has served as the chair of the Bulletin committee since 2016, publishing four annual issues so far. Her evolving interest in bells has led her to a new advocacy role: she promotes the beautiful sound, rich associations, and potential of bells and bell instruments in North America along with Jim Fackenthal and Dan Frysinger through their business Community Bell Advocates, LLC. Projects include advising Chicago’s St. Chrysostom’s Episcopal Church, researching the tower bells of Chicago’s St. John Cantius Catholic Church, and researching and advising the village of Niles, IL on the bells in their Leaning Tower of Pisa replica. Kim works as the faculty and department affairs administrator in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Chicago.
