David Kime, a master’s candidate in choral conducting, has written an eloquent review with thoughts about tour that he asked to share. It’s a great view of the concert and touring from a BYU Singers’ perspective.
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Many of the tour experiences that leave the greatest impressions on my heart and mind happen when we perform at churches and in settings associated with our sponsoring institution, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When we entered the Visitors Center on the temple grounds, I immediately felt like somehow we were “home.” Before we started our afternoon rehearsal, we had a chance to enter the rotunda and see the replicas of Bertel Thorvaldsen’s “Christus” and Christ’s Apostles. The Spirit was palpably present as we had the chance to observe the marks in Jesus’ hands, feet, and side—marks incurred and retained on behalf of each one of us—and to remember his faithful, courageous disciples tasked with taking His Gospel to all the world.
In the evening, we were blessed to perform a concert in the meetinghouse also present on the temple grounds, which had surprisingly live acoustics and made singing in the space a joy. Dr. Crane, ever the master programmer, designed our set around the idea of sharing a combination of Italian and American music in something of an exchange with our audience. We opened our concert with Dr. Wells’ moving a cappella setting of the St. Francis of Assisi text, “O Lovely and Luminous House,” which felt fitting in such a truly holy place, with the Lord’s house only a few hundred feet from where we sang.
Following this opening, we shared two of our competition set pieces that we will perform in Thessaloniki, Greece; one by Baldassare Galuppi, and the other by living composer Paolo Orlandi. Orlandi’s piece is an original setting of a portion of the text from “Inferno” in Dante’s Divine Comedy. Our audiences so far have been familiar enough with the text that they recite it with Dr. Crane when he explains the piece! Orlandi’s writing perfectly embodies the combination of sadness, resignation, and despair represented by this text.
A small group from the choir then sang Palestrina’s “Sicut Cervus,” which honors the Italian composer’s 500th birthday being celebrated this year. Something about this piece was different last night. I had the privilege to conduct it, and I marveled at how well the group was expressing both their independent musical lines and the overall message of the piece, in which a life-sustaining yearning for God is compared to a deer’s yearning for water. We finished our set of Italian pieces with an arrangement for double choir and soloists of one movement from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Dr. Crane introduced this piece by challenging the audience to guess the composer. During a fermata rest just after the piece started, one audience member identified the work out loud, which made us smile as we delved into this very technically difficult piece. Our soloists in this piece performed excellently and deserve a shoutout: Taylor Imbler, Brixtin Walker, Holly Duerichen, Kelsey Snyder, Blake Wayment, James Monson, Claire Miranda (standing in for Camilla Anderson, who we dearly miss!), and McKenzie Bahr.
With the Italian music completed, we shared two hymns, beginning with baritone Spencer Baldwin’s arrangement of “Baptism,” with James Monson at the piano. This arrangement has always been a joy for the choir to sing, but I found it particularly poignant last night as I listened to the sopranos and altos sing the first verse, recalling Jesus’ own baptism by John the Baptist. It was so special to think of that pivotal moment in the Savior’s life while we were standing and singing in a city that for more than a thousand years has been known as the cradle of Christianity. We immediately sang “Rejoice, the Lord Is King,” accompanied by organ. This piece almost lifted the roof of the chapel with its sonic and spiritual power; based on the way they applauded after the piece, the audience felt the power.
We finished with a set of four offerings from different American musical genres. First, “Caterete,” by Brazilian composer Francisco Mignone. We have been working hard to get this piece ready for our competition next week, and it seemed to really “click” in a serendipitous way during this performance. One of the sister missionaries in attendance was from Brazil and was very excited to hear us sing something from her South American musical tradition. The next piece, an arrangement of Shara Nova’s “I Have Never Loved Someone,” has been moving and profound for us to perform since the day we began rehearsing it. To me, a new parent, this song of a mother expressing love to her child and the assurance that “you’re okay,” felt different—I’ve been away from my wife and daughter longer than ever before on this tour, and we are only a week in! This is a poignant piece for all in the choir. In “He Is,” a powerful African-American gospel song, the choir connected beautifully with the audience and with each other. I love the way we interact with each other during this piece, and the testimony we can bear in a bold way that the Savior truly is our one great hope. Soloists Madison Paez, Matthew Paez, and Trace Glick were strong as always in delivering that message. We ended the concert with “Wheels of a Dream,” a song from the musical Ragtime, in which an African-American father expresses his hope for the future of his family despite the challenges and discrimination they currently face. Soloist Spencer Baldwin began the piece powerfully, and the choir seemed to sing it with new conviction.
Our very appreciative audience gave us a standing ovation, after which we finished with the favorite tour encore, “I Am a Child of God.” The simple, powerful truths expressed in beautiful singing through this piece were a fervent “amen” to the evening.
I share this long-winded report on our performance last night to let you (whoever you may be) know how grateful we are as BYU Singers for the opportunity to visit and perform in these truly sacred places and gatherings. To be united with Latter-day Saints and friends through the power of music is life changing not only for our audiences, but also for us as choir members. When we found out this morning at church that over 70 attendees had been nonmembers, we felt a deep sense of gratitude that God would give us the chance to testify of Him and of His Son to this audience that so gratefully received our message. To our families, friends, BYU Singers past, donors, and all others who make possible these experiences, we say THANK YOU for helping to change our lives, the lives of our audiences, and the world, through the power of sacred music.