Musician’s Note: Mormon Tabernacle Choir with the Utah Symphony

A fantastic opportunity awaits you this Friday, August 15th: The chance to hear your world-renowned Utah Symphony along with its equally famed guests, Mack Wilberg and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. We’ll be performing in our own heavenly backyard, the breathtakingly beautiful and refreshingly cool hillside venue at Deer Valley!

What could be better for the grand finale week of the Deer Valley® Music Festival?

I feel very fortunate to have had firsthand experience with both of these groups. Soon after returning to Salt Lake City from graduate school, I accepted an invitation to join the Tabernacle Choir. What a thrilling experience it was to be a part of this unique organization - essentially all amateurs, but in fact, as we know, one of the greatest and most beloved choirs in all the world. Its sheer numbers generate the kind of excitement and fervor you’ll feel listening to its stirring signature piece, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, but it can move you equally deep in your heart with tender renderings from Brahms Requiem to the lovely songs Shenandoah, and Waters Ripple and Flow.

As a singing member, in additional to performing weekly “from the crossroads of the West,” I traveled with the choir on tours to Nashville, Louisville, Washington D.C., Mexico City, Munich, Paris, and London. After relinquishing my spot in the choir (having in the meantime joined the Utah Symphony), I nevertheless have very fond additional memories of traveling with the choir on its tour to Eastern Europe in 1991, when in such cultural capitals as Budapest, Warsaw, and Moscow I can attest to the joy that the choir’s singing brought to those listeners who found themselves lucky enough to get tickets.

Of course, the Utah Symphony has taken marvelous tours as well, bringing our music to many areas of the United States over the years, as well as to South America (summer of ‘71), England (’75), and the European Continent in ‘66, ‘77, ‘81, ‘86, and ‘05. I have had the privilege of participating in all of these tours except the earliest two, as I joined the orchestra in the fall of 1971.

In Utah we are indeed blessed to have two such preeminent musical organizations which are so outstanding and revered throughout the world. To experience them together in the same concert just does not happen every day, so please do not miss this concert! I believe it will remain happily in your memory for a long time to come.

Sincerely,

Julianne Johnson
Violin, Utah Symphony

Mormon Tabernacle Choir with the Utah Symphony
Friday, August 15, 2008 at 7:30 PM
Deer Valley Snow Park Amphitheater