Music

A Vocal Marathon: The Tabernacle Choir and the Olympics
by Robb Cundick

Choir members await their turn on Earth (the entrance to
the “Light of the World” globe-shaped stage is in the background).

The Tabernacle Choir has gathered together – either for rehearsal or performance – for thirteen straight days. Like the Olympic Torch Marathon, these days have covered much ground and have been a test of our endurance, yet they have been filled with anticipation of a singular and spirit-stirring goal: the Opening Ceremonies. It is Monday, February 11 and at last there is time to pause for a day and spend an evening with our families, perhaps catching an Olympic event or two on television. The time is also right to reflect on all we have experienced so far.

Light of the World
This intense phase began on Tuesday, January 29 with the first full dress rehearsal of “Light of the World”. [See Melanie Bridge’s article https://www.meridianmagazine.com/churchupdate/020206light.html to read more about this magnificent production.] This was our first opportunity to meet the rest of the cast, and as we made our entrance they greeted us with cheers.

Though our recorded voices are heard throughout much of the production, plans called for the Choir to actually be on stage for only one number at the beginning. “O Come Ye Nations of the Earth” is a call to all nations and peoples to embrace the light that our Heavenly Father radiates upon the earth and all its creatures.

The unusual stage is shaped like the surface of a globe with a steep pitch. We were required to come up and over the globe quickly. Some of us found it necessary to run in order to keep up with those in front. It was a good thing we were singing to a pre-recorded track, for it took me a while to catch my breath. But it was exhilarating to experience the joy and excitement expressed by the cast at having us join them. They helped get our “race” off to an energetic start!

But you don’t stand around after you’ve run the first few yards of a marathon, and after completing our song we marched straight over to the Tabernacle to rehearse for other events. Wednesday and Thursday evenings were spent in rehearsal as well, and Friday we returned to the Conference Center for the first performance before an audience. After finishing our part we stayed to watch the remainder of the show.

The working title for this production has been “The Spectacular,” and it certainly lived up to that billing. The cast was energetic and the special effects breathtaking. It was made up of events from Church history and inspiring stories about Olympic athletes. I felt a glow inside at the conclusion – a feeling I hope everyone who comes will share. I was particularly excited to find that the main story line is built around the life of Alma Richards, the first Latter-day Saint athlete to win an Olympic Gold Medal (for High Jump in the 1912 Stockholm, Sweden Summer Games). I became acquainted with this remarkable and touching story a couple of years ago and felt that someone should write a play or make a movie about it. If you don’t know about Alma, there is a wonderful article in the Internet archives of Brigham Young Magazine, written by Lee Benson of the Deseret News. See: https://advance.byu.edu/bym/1996/96august/s-richards.html

Saturday afternoon was a matinee performance of “Light,” followed by a rehearsal. Sunday dawned to our usual broadcast of Music and the Spoken Word. In the evening we performed a concert with the Utah Symphony for the International Olympic Committee. The concert was somewhat disappointing because speeches went long and much of what we had planned to sing was cut.

My daugher Emma thrills to the sight of the Olympic Flame.

Rehearsing for the Ceremonies
On Monday the first dress rehearsal for the Opening Ceremonies was held. It proved to be the start of a long uphill stretch. Though the program wouldn’t begin until evening, we needed to be downtown at 2:30 to be identified, given security tags and bussed to the indoor tennis facility at the University of Utah. Here we would wait with other ceremony participants until it was time to enter the stadium.

This experience was reminiscent of last year’s Inaugural Parade in Washington, D.C. where we waited for hours in a holding facility with other parade participants. The tennis building was swarming with thousands of people in colorful costumes. The noisy atmosphere was dominated by a sound that would continue unabated throughout the week: the chanting and beating of drums by members of Utah’s five Native American Tribes.

The Ceremonies were reminiscent of the Inauguration in another way as well – it was very cold. The Salt Lake Organizing Committee had provided us with long white coats as our costume, and we had been told to wear anything and everything underneath in order to keep warm. I put on so many layers of clothing I probably resembled a polar bear by the time I buttoned the coat. Then, hoping for the best, I waddled outside with the rest of the Choir and headed over to the stadium in the cold night air.

We were excited to discover we had been given choice seats at the south end of the stadium, right next to the ice and in front of the athletes and the towering Olympic Caldron. It was exciting to see the ceremony for the first time but towards the end I was shivering too much to have any fun. We hoped and prayed for warmer weather later in the week.

Tuesday evening was a special performance of “Light” for media and special guests of the Church.  One of the cast members told me that like the Choir, she and many others were participating in the Opening Ceremonies as well.  So they too were running a marathon and were undoubtedly as tired as we when we all returned to Olympic Stadium for the second dress rehearsal on Wednesday night.  But since I was better prepared for the cold, Wednesday was a better experience than the first.

NBC Today Show Weatherman Al Roker meets the Tabernacle Choir.

The Today Show
Thursday we were up early, arriving at the Tabernacle at 6:30 AM for our performance on the NBC Today Show. Hosts Katie Couric and Matt Lauer were broadcasting from Park City so we didn’t see them. But jovial weatherman Al Roker was on hand to chat with Brother Jessop and introduce our selections (a verse of “America the Beautiful” and part of “Battle Hymn of the Republic”).

During one of the breaks, Al was joking around and started to sing the children’s song, “Bingo” (“There was a farmer had a dog.”). To his delight, the Choir joined right in. When he went on air to interview Craig, he turned and asked us to sing it again while he beat time. We sang out and started to improvise harmony. It was one of those funny, spontaneous moments for which Al is famous. But talk about overkill. Getting the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to sing “B – I – NGO” is like firing a howitzer to squash a mosquito!

As the cameramen were packing up we sang “Joshua Fit de Battle of Jericho” and “God Be With You ‘Til We Meet Again” especially for Al. These two numbers have become a great “one-two punch” lately. They reach straight to the heart in expressing our love for the Lord and for all mankind. Al Roker, too, seemed moved by them. (You may be wondering why we use “Joshua” so much – it is a stirring arrangement by Moses Hogan. We have committed it to memory and it is convenient because it requires no accompaniment.)

The Today Show broadcast did not complete our morning’s work, however. We learned that since Tuesday’s “Light of the World,” President Hinckley had decided the Choir should be on stage at the end of the production as well. The week suddenly became more complicated since this would take from the rehearsing we had planned to do while not on stage. But we are glad to carry out any request from the Prophet. Those who could stay were asked to go to the Conference Center and block out a new formation for the conclusion of the production, where we would sing “High on the Mountain Top.” This was our longest day, for we returned again in the evening to perform “Light of the World.”

The Big Day Arrives
Friday, February 8. At last the most anticipated day of the Olympics had arrived. We awoke to a blanket of snow. A storm had cleared out the grimy air that results when warmer temperatures in the upper atmosphere trap cold winter air in the Salt Lake Valley. It was an answer to prayer, for the clearing of the inversion meant the temperatures for the Opening Ceremonies would not be so frigid.

After meeting downtown, our first destination was the Utah State Capitol Building where President Bush was to speak at a welcoming reception. We stood on the stairs and balcony at the west end of the rotunda, right behind the speaker’s podium. Distinguished guests from all over the world sat before us. Among them I saw UN Secretary Kofi Anan, Madeleine Albright and General Colin Powell. We sang “O Come Ye Nations of the Earth” (from “Light of the World” and tailor-made for this occasion), “Climb Every Mountain,” and “Battle Hymn of the Republic” accompanied by our Tabernacle Organists and an Army Band.

For our Cultural Olympiad Concerts, the balcony of the
Tabernacle has been decorated with the flags of many nations. There are 84 in all.

President Bush obviously enjoyed sitting right in front of us while we sang the Battle Hymn. At the end of the ceremony he turned and walked straight to the Choir, shaking hands with all he could reach. When I returned to the bus I saw Bill Gibbons, who had been standing up front. “Did you shake the President’s hand?” “Yes!” Bill replied. I extended my hand to Bill and guess what? I got to be the first person to shake Bill’s hand after he had grasped the President’s. Even now I’ll bet there’s a trace of Presidential DNA on my right hand!

Upon our arrival at the tennis center I met the Pastor of Salt Lake City’s Calvary Baptist Church, whose gospel choir was also participating. As I said hello we heard a voice behind say, “Has anybody seen the Mormon Tabernacle Choir?” We turned to find it was a member of his choir, and the Pastor said, “Here’s one of them right here.” This man was so excited to meet members of the Choir and asked where we would be. Later in the afternoon, members of the Calvary Baptist Gospel Choir and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir got together and had a little “sing-in” (of course, we sang “Joshua” for them). They sang for us and we all sang familiar songs together such as “Amazing Grace” and “Amen” – all to the continued beat of those Native American drums!

When it came time to enter Olympic Stadium, there was Michael Kamen (see my previous article), shaking the hand of every Choir member. I wanted to say something nice, but you know how it is when you don’t have time to think. I blurted out, “we sure love you!” and I’m afraid I scared the poor man. He seemed taken aback but I heard him tell the next fellow, “Well, I love you, too!”

I don’t know what I can say about the Ceremonies themselves that you won’t already know, but how exciting it was to be in the middle of it all! To see those images on the giant screens and know that the whole world was watching made my heart swell with pride to be an American; to be a Utahn; but first and most of all, a Latter-day Saint representing my brothers and sisters all over the world.

The arrangement of our national anthem was composed before it was known it would be sung before an honor guard holding the flag that the survived the World Trade Center destruction, but its reverent expression couldn’t have been more appropriate. Another highlight was the entrance of the athletes. It was fun to wave and shout a welcome as they passed next to us in the aisles. And there are so many returned missionaries and foreign language speakers in the Choir that many were greeted in their native language.

Then there was the lighting of the Cauldron. We had been initially told we must not turn around to watch, but someone managed to get that changed and we’re so thankful they did, because no eye was looking anywhere but at the lighting at that moment. Did you cringe as I did when the flame seemed to disappear about half way up to the top? What an anticlimax that would have been! But I suspect Mountain Fuel had a guy hidden at the top holding a Bic lighter just in case.

We were much more comfortable than we had been the previous nights so there was nothing to keep us from enjoying this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to its fullest. The Lord had surely smiled upon us and answered many prayers in providing the improved weather. As we left the stadium, one of the volunteers asked me, “Are you glad it’s over?” “Oh, we’re not done!” I replied.

The Last Couple of Miles
This article has perhaps gone on long enough, but there were two more days remaining before our Monday rest, and it is what happened on those days that will be perhaps linger even more significantly in our memories than did the Opening Ceremonies. In our vocal marathon, we had “hit the wall.” While we did get to sleep in a little on Saturday, we had to hurry downtown for a matinee performance of “Light” followed by a rehearsal and a concert that night (there was no time to go back home). The rehearsal was pretty ragged, and by the time evening came, Choir members were clearly exhausted as we awaited the concert in the basement of the Tabernacle.

Elder Neal A. Maxwell came by and tried to cheer us up, saying, “One of these days maybe you’ll get home to see your families. You might find that one of your sons has gone on a mission while you were gone!” We had a good laugh, but there was more truth in that statement than any of us cared to think about.

Members of the Salt Lake International Children’s
Choir await their performance in the Tabernacle.

But this was to be an occasion for another of those fabled, “Tabernacle Choir miracles.” When the concert started we were blessed with renewed energy. Perhaps some of it can be attributed to the excitement that always comes when rehearsals are over and it is time to perform. Certainly our “reinforcements” helped – the Orchestra at Temple Square, the Salt Lake International Children’s Choir dressed in beautiful native costumes from all over the world, the U.S. Army Herald Trumpets from Washington, D.C. and renowned soprano Fredericka Von Stade. And not to forget John Williams, who came to personally conduct “Call of the Champions” (the Salt Lake City Olympic theme) and two more of his own compositions (the orchestra’s rendition of the theme music from the John Wayne movie, “The Cowboys” was stunning).

But we in the Choir know it was more than that; for when we have done everything possible to carry out what has been asked of us, the Lord has always stepped in to provide what is needed to finish the race. Saturday evening and again on Sunday morning for the broadcast and another concert, my fellow Choir members and I can testify that the Lord did indeed provide in full measure.

And as we finally crossed the finish line, how heartening it was to find our Prophet waiting there. President Hinckley came forward at the conclusion of Sunday’s events to say, “By all rights you should all be home in bed with pneumonia! I am here to thank you and your families for the many sacrifices you have made this week.” Thank you, President Hinckley.  We’d do anything for you – and the Lord!

But now – another week and another race, and then another one after that. And after a week’s hiatus, yet another busy week when the Paralympics come to town. But I still don’t hear any complaining. As always, it is a wonderful time to be part of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir!

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