SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, May 23, 2019 (Gephardt Daily) — The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square has announced their 2020 Heritage Tour.
A news release from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Thursday said the choir will travel internationally for their upcoming tour performing in six cities in four Nordic countries and the United Kingdom over 22 days from Thursday, June 25, through Thursday, July 16, 2020.
The tour will include performances in the following cities and venues:
- Konserthuset Stockholm in Stockholm, Sweden, on June 27, 2020
- Finlandia Hall in Helsinki, Finland, on June 30, 2020
- DR Koncerthuset in Copenhagen, Denmark, on July 2, 2020
- Oslo, Norway, on July 7, 2020 (venue to be announced)
- St. David’s Hall in Cardiff, Wales, on July 10, 2020 (invitation only)
- International Convention Centre Wales in Cardiff, Wales, on July 11, 2020
- Usher Hall in Edinburgh, Scotland, on July 14, 2020
The concert at St. David’s Hall in Cardiff will be a benefit concert with attendance by invitation only. Ticket information for the other venues will be announced at a later date, the news release said.
Choir President Ron Jarrett said the name of the tour is a nod to the history of the Choir which took root because of early converts to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with musical talents from Wales and other areas visited on the upcoming tour.
“We stand on the shoulders of these musical pioneers who created a legacy that has influenced the entire world for good,” Jarrett said. “What an honor it will be to share the joy and peace the music of the Choir brings in some of the very places where it all began.”
The first conductor of the Tabernacle Choir, John Parry, was an early Welsh convert to the Church who later immigrated to Salt Lake City, the news release said. In 1849, he led 85 Welsh members in a singing group and was soon asked by Church President Brigham Young to form an official choir. Another future conductor of the Choir, George Edward Percy Careless, began his musical career in London in 1862 after completing formal studies at the Royal Academy of Music. In 1865, Young approached Careless, the news release stated, and said, “Brother George, I have a mission for you. I want you to be Chief Musician of the Church. I want you to take the Tabernacle Choir and the Theatre Orchestra and lay a foundation for good music.”
The Tabernacle Choir first traveled to Europe on a seven-week concert tour in 1955, the news release said. Since that first grand European tour, the Choir has toured there five other times: to western and central Europe in 1973, northern Europe in 1982, eastern Europe in 1991, southern Europe in 1998, and central Europe in 2016. The Choir last toured these four Nordic cities 37 years ago in 1982. It has not visited Wales or Scotland since the first European tour in 1955.
Since its first tour outside of Utah in 1893, the Choir has toured extensively across the United States and abroad, the news release said. In addition to its previous tours to Europe, it has performed in music capitals from Israel and Russia to Japan and Australia. Its travels have also included performances at the inaugurations of seven U.S. presidents. A complement of approximately 65 members of the Orchestra has traveled on tour with the Choir since 2005.
The 360-voice Choir, accompanied frequently at home by the Orchestra whose member roster totals over 200, can also be heard weekly as part of the “Music and the Spoken Word” broadcast.
The Choir and Orchestra are active recording artists with their own recording label, which has released over 90 CDs, DVDs, books and other products since it was founded in 2003.
For more information on the tour, click here.
