Glockenspiel back in downtown Regina

It has been absent for about a decade, but the glockenspiel is back in downtown Regina.

The bells have been put up near Scarth Street in Victoria Park. The bells will ring daily at noon and 6 p.m. during the week with an adjusted schedule on Saturday.

Emmaline Hill, manager of social and cultural development with the City of Regina, says it more than likely won’t run on Sundays.

She said there will be a wide variety of folk and Canadian pop songs that people will recognize being played. The program running it comes preprogrammed with a wide variety of traditional German folk songs and the city worked with a local artist to provide some more variety.

“There will be lots of familiar songs for folks to listen to,” Hill said.

The glockenspiel was first installed in the city’s downtown in the 1980s.

“It celebrates our immigrant history, particularly German settlement, but the multicultural history of this city,” Hill said.

It was removed in 2010 in order to create the downtown plaza.

“Because we didn’t have a reliable means in which it could play, we didn’t have plans to reinstall it at that time,” Hill said.

Volunteers from the German community and University of Regina are advising in the creation of the playlists.