TCATS #275 - Contest Winners, New Organist, Upcoming Concert!

One of the winners being welcomed.

I knew something unusual was up when I walked into the Tabernacle Thursday night for rehearsal. Three or four individuals were sporting cameras and videoing the winners of the Let Us All Press On "Sing with the Choir" contest. As contest winners (being randomly selected from 6,243 entries), their prize was to sing with the choir both at rehearsal Thursday night, and at the Sunday morning rehearsal and broadcast run-through (unfortunately, they didn't get

A winner being shown to the choir seats.

to actually sing on the broadcast itself). At any rate, it was fun to have them there, to hear them get introduced, and to see their excitement of being able to sing with the choir! You can read a more complete write-up about the winners and their experience, HERE.

In other choir news, after a number of auditions that took place over the past several months, it was finally revealed who would be a new organist for the choir organization: Joseph Peeples. You can read all about him and his appointment, HERE. Our organists do such an incredible job. I can't imagine living with the

Joseph Peeples

pressure of having to perform all the pieces they perform, with 99.9% accuracy. If I mess up by singing a wrong note or by getting the rhythm wrong (never happens...yeah right! Haha), I have other people around me that do a good job of covering that up. But not so with the organists. They are on their own and do an incredible job. Welcome Joseph!


This coming Friday and Saturday we'll be performing in our annual Easter Concert that we've been busily preparing for. The concert will consist of 10 songs, all memorized. The good news, is that tickets are still available! If you happen to live out of town, you can still watch (stream) the concert from the comfort of your own home by going to the ChurchOfJesusChrist.org website, Choir’s website thetabernaclechoir.org; the Choir's YouTube channel; or on the Choir’s Facebook page.  The concert will also be posted on YouTube for later viewing. 

Until next time, God be with you.

Photo credit: Salt Lake Tribune, Scott Sheetz

TCATS #274 - 189th SAGC

If you were to ask Mack Wilberg and Ryan Murphy what they thought about the Choir's performance this weekend at General Conference, they would likely say it was one of the best Conference performances, ever. Over the course of Saturday and Sunday, after singing each of the 20 or so songs that were part of the Conference repertoire, they gave us several compliments, smiles, and thumbs-up. And I think all of that positive feedback not only represented excellence from a technical musicality standpoint, but from a spiritual standpoint as well. 

At any rate, I wanted to devote the rest of this blog entry to those things that impacted me the most--from the perspective of the "choir conference" experience. 

Most Impactful Songs
While it's challenging to pick just a few, I'd have to choose the following:
**O Thou Rock of Our Salvation - Each conference I dedicate a song to my wife just for fun. It's a way that she knows I'm thinking of her while I'm away for so long. So this time, this is the one I picked. Also, I just really felt a powerful hope in the song's lyrics--especially in the last verse coming true. "When for all that we’ve contended, when the fight of faith we’ve won, when the strife and battle’s ended, and our labor here is done."
**Now Let Us Rejoice - This is one of my favorite hymns and it always reminds me of the last church meeting I had in Japan where I asked the choir director to have the congregation sing this song after I had exhorted the Saints there to rejoice both now, and in the great future ahead.
**Called to Serve- I have two missionaries serving, so, of course I thought of them while singing this one.
**How Firm a Foundation - Another favorite hymn. And this arrangement is top-notch.
**I Need Thee Every Hour - What a better way to end General Conference this year--with a plea to have God's help every hour as we strive to become better.

Easiest Session to Sing
This goes to the Saturday morning session. It was nice to be fully confident in all the songs I was singing. 

Best "That's Really Awesome" Moment
This one is a tie. 
First one goes to what happened after the Conference was over. Bishop Causse came over and personally thanked our women organists for doing such a fine job. 
Second one goes to President Oaks who, after he was exiting the rostrum, turned to the choir and made several heart-warming gestures indicating he had loved the music and was thankful for our service and talents. 

Yummy Moment
Haha! This one goes to all the brethren who brought yummy treats to pass around while the speakers were speaking. (And yes, we do pass around treats--as discretely as possible--in an effort to keep us awake and alert) I think the row I was on had the best and most varied selection of goodies.

Funniest Interchange
When Ryan Murphy was conducting us during a rehearsal, he looked at the camera guy who had his camera pointing at his right side and jokingly said "Hey! That's not my best side." The camera guy then proceeded to point his camera at Ryan's backside--at which point we all started laughing.

Best Bro Moment
A few of us backstage who knew each other well, were greeting each other with hugs. A choir member just a few feet away saw the hugging and half-laughing asked if he could join. So we all gave him a hug, too, as he introduced himself to everyone. Instant friends.

Proud Moment
As our carpool made its way into the Conference Center this morning, each talked about how they were planning to take President Nelson's counsel to heart, citing the need to repent more and sharing personal thoughts about becoming a better husband, father, and friend. I was grateful for each one of their honest expressions and commitment to follow counsel and do better. 

Overall, I'm grateful, again, for this prized experience of getting to sing spiritually upliftings songs that feed my soul, and getting to do it with people I love. I'm also grateful for my wife and kids for their continual support!

Now onto Easter music, extra rehearsals, and an upcoming Easter concert. The choir train does. not. stop.

Until next time, God be with you. 

Singing "O Thou Rock of Our Salvation"

 

TCATS #273 - State of Things

There are times during the year when The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square has A LOT going on. And this is one of them. This past Friday and Saturday evening, the Temple Square Chorale (comprised of 1st year/new choir members, along with the 2nd year members) and Orchestra had their concert in which Ryan Murphy directed, and the choir sang, “Te Deum in C,” followed by Leonard Bernstein’s 1965 choral composition Chichester Psalms. I was not able to attend, but Mack Wilberg gave it very high praise this morning at rehearsal--saying it was one of the best concerts he's been to. Well done, 1st and 2nd years!

This week is continued preparation for General Conference, which we'll be a part of this coming Saturday and Sunday (about 21 songs, 7 memorized). Following conference, we have about two weeks to get ready for this year's Easter Concert (10 songs, all memorized). Then after THAT, we have the Tanner Gift of Music concert on May 10th (unsure on how many we're singing). After that, we actually slide into "normal" schedule in which we just prep for Music and the Spoken Word each Sunday--for about six weeks. And then we work on preparing for the Pioneer Day Concert in July.

Today's broadcast went really well for me personally. An unexpected blessing came out of nowhere, and, I got to sing "It is Well With My Soul", too. I've blogged about that song numerous times, so I won't rehash all of that. Needless to say, I love everything about that song and it touches me on many different levels. Makes me grateful, happy, and excited for when Christ will come again and all we need to do still to prepare for that.

Until next time, God be with you.

Singing "It is Well With My Soul" today

 

TCATS #272 - Brazzle Dazzle

The Tabernacle Choir has several songs they sing from musical and movie

R.Murphy conducting his arrangement

soundtracks. These include such well known titles as Climb Every Mountain and My Favorite Things (Sound of Music), Tonight (West Side Story), Love is a Song (Bambi), One Person (Dear World), and Come to My Garden and Hold On (from

Secret Garden). These songs have been sung for years by the Choir and it's rare that we get anything "new". But a year or so ago, Ryan Murphy arranged a song from the movie Pete's Dragon, called Brazzle Dazzle Day, (original, Murphy's arrangement) and while the Choir doesn't sing it as often as some of the others, we did get to sing it today. 

At first listen, the song's happy, go-lucky melody may not seem to carry much depth. But some of the lyrics really are recipes for a happier life. And who among us doesn't want to be happier? Here are just a few things that the lyrics invite us to do:

Pete's Dragon stars singing Brazzle Dazzle

*throw off the past
*enjoy every minute, every hour
*shake away life's blues
*live the high life
*don't put off work that needs doing
*dwell on love instead of sorrow
*realize that each day has something *special to enjoy 

These are all things that I could do better at, and I suspect there are at least a few that you'd want to adopt more of, as well. I don't mean to trivialize the hardships of life and how difficult it is to get through such hardships. But sometimes small things bring about big results. And it may make all the difference in the world, some days, to just take one of these invitations above and try living it. 

I plan to try. And hope you will too.

Until next time, God be with you. 

PS: thanks to my wife for her suggestion to write about this song today!

TCATS #271 - Showing Support

Rather than talking about my Tabernacle Choir experiences directly, today, I want to share some thoughts about an indirect Tabernacle Choir experience I had over the weekend. A friend of mine, who's in the choir, invited me to come support him at the Northstar Conference that was held on Friday and Saturday. This friend of mine, along with some others in the choir, experiences SSA (same-sex attraction) and the Conference is held once a year for those who deal with that and other issues along the LGBTQ spectrum. The Conference is also for friends, family, and leaders within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to come learn more about how they can support this segment of LDS population that is sometimes overlooked and misunderstood. While a part of me was, honestly, hesitant to go, I ended up being grateful for the experience. I learned a lot about not just supporting those who have SSA, but I also learned much about how to support others going through ANY hard thing. Here are a few nuggets of doctrine and wisdom that were shared:

**LGBT church members have unique and important gifts to contribute to the building up of Zion. God has given each of us ways to use our talents for His work.
**Love is the fulfillment of the law. When we see others, we should see a reflection of the Savior's love for us, and we should see that, in them. I am he, and he is me.
**Our job is not to fix others, but to support them and love them. Each individual has their own journey. How can we best help them along that journey?
**God allows children to be who they are so that we can increase our own ability to love and accept and be changed in the process.
**God is full of grace and truth. We should be too. We should strive to find the perfect mixture between the two since too much of one, without the other, isn't helpful.
**Even when you're not on the front lines of a crisis or hardship, you can still bear the burden and pull part of the load. 
**When viewing healthy relationships, keep in mind mutual acceptance, being true to self, spending quality time, being vulnerable, having open communication, and not expecting the other person to fill personal gaps that you, yourself, need to work on.
**Own your feelings and then deal with them. Develop friendships to meet needs broadly, not specifically.
**You'll never look back on life and say that you hugged too many people! Hugs are an excellent way to show support.
**We don't need to meet some minimum standard of living before the grace of God kicks in. You don't need to "do your best" (what even is that, really?) before God grants His grace. He gives it freely for the taking as we stay on the righteous path.
**Making covenants with God is an act of inviting more grace into our lives. We need that grace to fully keep those covenants! 
**Come as you are, but don't expect or be OK with staying that way. God is all about changing us into better people while keeping our unique gifts and talents in-tact. 

All in all, I was grateful for what I learned, and grateful I was able to show some support to my friends and to others at the conference who needed support and love as well. The leadership at the conference debuted a touching video--THIS IS WHAT I KNOW--with everyone in that video belonging to the LDS LGBT community. I invite you to take five minutes and watch it. 

Until next time, God be with you.

TCATS #270 - BYU Singers 2019

We had some special guests join us today on Music & the Spoken Word: the BYU Singers! Every other year they get to come and participate and it was really nice to have them. I was talking with a friend during the break about how seeing them brings back memories of when we were in one of the BYU choirs, oh so many years ago. It seems like that time was in the far distant past--and yet, I can remember many moments of that experience with perfect clarity. Music does that for me--it preserves memories like nothing else can.

The Singers sang two numbers on their own, and joined us for two others. Of course they sounded wonderful. Exquisite, even. The whole program was a delight to be a part of and we ended the program with one of my favorites--"Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing." No matter how many times I sing that, I get chills and a warmth wash over me at the same time, every time. It's a powerful anthem about God's love and wanting to be with Him, again.

I guess that's about it for today. Short and sweet! I did want to say though, that when we got our choir announcements this week (they come out every Friday and keep us up to date on what we need to prepare for, which songs we need to memorize, etc), I fully realized how many songs I need to work on for upcoming events. Fortunately, I have most of the songs memorized for conference already, but the Easter Service includes a lot of songs I really need to spend outside time rehearsing. I'm sure I'll get there, but it's kind of like that feeling you get as you prepare for an upcoming final: overwhelmed, but trying to be confident.  

Until next time, God be with you.

BYU Singers on Today's Broadcast, Conductor Andrew Crane

TCATS #269 - New Recording: Let Us All Press On!

This week (Friday, March 8th), a new recording by the Tabernacle Choir & Orchestra at Temple Square will be available, titled LET US ALL PRESS ON. The whole Choir organization is really excited about this new compilation, and I'd have to say that out of all of the recording projects I've been a part of, this one has been my favorite. Why, you ask? Well, for me, nothing can top the spiritual and uplifting powerful that comes with Christian hymns. 

Some of you reading this might be tempted to think that another CD or streaming playlist of hymns really isn't THAT big of deal, is it? I mean, there are lots and lots of recordings of various hymns --so what really differentiates this new recording from all of the others?

While I can't provide you with a complete answer to that question, I can tell you that a lot of inspiration has gone into this new compilation. It was meant to be, and it was meant to come out, now. Our wonderful President Ron Jarrett stood in front of us today, before our rehearsal, and gave us a background story as to how this recording project came about. I won't relate the whole story, but originally, the project was slated to include different songs with a different theme. However, as changes started to take place within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, under the direction of President Nelson, Pres. Jarrett felt inspired that the recording project include a set of hymns to not only inspire the Church members to "press on" in their faith and devotion to Jesus Christ, but to inspire people throughout the world with "music that will appeal to people of all faiths and traditions." In addition, great thought and care was taken in developing the cover art for this recording. As you can see, the artwork depicts majestic mountains rising above clouds, on the backdrop of a sunrise. As Pres. Jarrett commented on the symbolism of this artwork, my take-away from his comments was that each of us, in going through really hard things in life (climbing our personal mountains), will eventually breakthrough the clouds and the fog and be able to see the light. Our daily, weekly, and lifelong struggles can be overcome as we "all press on" in faith and righteous living. All of the hymns on this recording (which, by the way, includes some of my personal favorites like "Standing on the Promises", "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling", and the included arrangement of "All Creatures of Our God and King") are designed to help each of us in our uphill climb.

That all said, I'd invite you to give this new recording a chance to impact your life. I promise you that it will. Yes, there's the CD you can purchase, if CDs are your thing. You can stream the album if you're an Apple music subscriber or an Amazon music subscriber. And I'm hoping it'll be added to Spotify, too, so that the younger generation who listens to music via that platform, can also be inspired by these hymns. 

I'm grateful for music that inspires, uplifts, and keeps us all going in the right direction. And I'm grateful for music that helps each of us feel God's love and approval as we continue our uphill climb. 

The music on this recording can do just that. And probably more.

Until next time, God be with you.