In a meeting last November with members of the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, the church’s president, Russell M. Nelson, announced a new mission for the choir, an all-volunteer 360-member chorus of women and men that has played at the inaugurations of U.S. presidents and was named one of the world’s 10 best choirs in 2020 by BBC Music Magazine.
According to a Latter-day Saints press release, the choir added “three important words”—“throughout the world”— to its existing mission statement. The modified statement now reads: “The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square performs music that inspires people throughout the world to draw closer to the divine and feel God’s love for His children.”
“The Church will continue to grow,” the news statement quoted Nelson as saying. “It will fill the world. It will continue to bless more and more nations, tongues and people.”
Choir President Michael O. Leavitt, a former governor of Utah, where the Latter-day Saints church is headquartered, announced three pilot projects through which the church’s new global initiative is intended to be achieved.
The first project revolves around expanding access to the Tabernacle Choir’s radio, television, cable and internet programming. Launched on radio in 1929 as “Music and the Spoken Word,” the program is not only as old as radio itself but boasts the world’s longest uninterrupted broadcast.
Initially known as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the chorus changed its name in 2018 to the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, as part of an initiative by Nelson to refrain from using the word “Mormon” and stressing the church’s proper name instead.
Initial efforts to broaden the choir’s reach include foreign-language variations of its weekly broadcasts in Spanish and Portuguese. Native speakers will deliver the “Spoken Word” and graphics and visuals will be locally customized.
The second pilot project involves the choir’s foreign travel. Instead of going abroad every two years, as the choir has historically done, it will now travel overseas at least once a year, although for a shorter time than previously.
“The Choir will experiment with larger events, joint performances, and greater coordination with other Church entities,” says the church news statement. The first test of the new travel assignment is scheduled in Mexico City during the week of June 13-19, 2023, according to the statement.
To mirror the church’s enhanced worldwide membership, Latter-day Saints singers from Mexico, Central America, South America, West Africa, and the Philippines as well as other parts of Asia will be given an opportunity to audition for the choir during the first of the church’s biannual general conference this year, scheduled for April 1 and 2, 2023.
“It is possible this will be a one-time event,” Leavitt said of the overseas auditioning pilot program, which, as the statement put it, is “aimed at building a deeper sense of kinship and attachment with the Church and the Choir among members and nonmembers of the Church in these countries.”
“Or perhaps it will be something we will do periodically,” Leavitt said. “The most likely outcome, however, is that through this pilot project, we will gradually see new options and possibilities that will help the Choir better represent the worldwide Church.”
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