Jef Denyn was a carillon

Carillon

A carillon is a musical instrument that is typically housed in a free-standing bell tower, or the belfry of a church or other municipal building. The instrument consists of at least 23 cast bronze, cup-shaped bells, which are played serially to play a melody, or sounded together to play a chord...

 player from Mechelen

Mechelen

Mechelen Footnote: Mechelen became known in English as 'Mechlin' from which the adjective 'Mechlinian' is derived...

, Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

. In 1922, he founded the world's first and most renowned international higher institute of campanology

Campanology

Campanology is the study of bells. It encompasses the physical realities of bells — how they are cast, tuned and sounded — as well as the various methods devised to perform bell-ringing....

, later named after him, the Royal Carillon School "Jef Denyn" (Dutch: Koninklijke Beiaardschool "Jef Denyn") in Mechelen

Mechelen

Mechelen Footnote: Mechelen became known in English as 'Mechlin' from which the adjective 'Mechlinian' is derived...

.

During the First World War, he, his wife Helene, son and four daughters were among those Belgian refugees who fled to England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. The Denyn family were taken in by organist and musicologist William Wooding Starmer (1866-) in his house in Tunbridge Wells.

External links

Official webpage of the Royal Carillon School 'Jef Denyn'