Jerold and JoAnn Ottley have retired from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir — he as director, she as voice coach — but their contributions to musical growth, development and expertise at Church headquarters continues. And the legacy they established during his 25 years as director and her 23 as voice coach will endure for years to some.
Theirs is a case of being "retreaded" rather than "retired." In the months prior to their official retirement, which came on Dec. 3, they shifted the focus of their attention to helping form the new music organizations on Temple Square. They worked closely with the first session of the newly formed Temple Square Chorale, giving technical and specific training to the chorale, which is a training school for the Tabernacle Choir. They will continue on a Church service basis to work with the chorale, which will have two sessions a year.
At a Tabernacle Choir social on the evening of their retirement, President Gordon B. Hinckley paid tribute to Brother and Sister Ottley, presenting to them on behalf of the choir a music box and discs. He expressed appreciation for "the profound contributions" they have made, and said, "We love you. I speak for the entire Church when I say that we all love you. We appreciate more than we can say all you've done, and our prayers and our blessing and our best wishes go with you." Then on Dec. 5, during the First Presidency Christmas Devotional held in the Tabernacle and carried on the Church's satellite network, President Hinckley paid further and more public tribute to them, saying that they "have done a superb service in behalf of the entire Church. I wish to express appreciation and gratitude for what they've done."
Brother Ottley became music director of the Tabernacle Choir in 1974. He conducted the choir on 22 major concert tours to five continents and through numerous countries, including Japan, Korea, Brazil, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Holland, England, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Russia, Israel, Belgium, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, and throughout the United States.
He directed the choir in more than 1,250 radio and television broadcasts of "Music and the Spoken Word," the longest continuous network radio program in the world.
He also directed the choir in recording numerous albums on a variety of labels, including CBS Masterworks, London Decca, Argo, Bonneville Classics, LazerLight and Hallmark Cards. The 1991 and 1992 Hallmark Christmas recordings sold more than 1 million copies and received platinum record awards.
During his tenure as conductor, the Tabernacle Choir received numerous honors, including two Emmy Awards.
Brother Ottley conducted the choir in concerts, parades and galas for the inaugurations of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush. Other outstanding performances include conducting the choir in a benefit concert for orphaned children in Sao Paulo, Brazil; in a live BBC worldwide satellite broadcast, a program titled "Star Over Bethlehem," on Christmas Eve 1979; in a telethon from Tokyo, Japan, to raise money to fight starvation in Ethiopia and other parts of the world; at the 1984 Olympics Gala in Los Angeles; at the 1986 Statue of Liberty Centennial celebration, and, in 1987, at the 200th anniversary of the United States Constitution in Philadelphia.
He prepared the Tabernacle Choir for major choral works performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Utah Symphony, the Grand Teton Festival Orchestra and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra under the batons of such renowned conductors as Eugene Ormandy, Maurice Abravanel, Ling Tung, Stanislaw Skrowaczewki, Michael Tilson Thomas, Robert Shaw, Julius Rudel and David Shallon. He has been the guest conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Utah Symphony, with Sister Ottley performing as soloist.
A 1968 Fulbright scholarship recipient, he studied at the Academy of Music in Cologne, Germany. He is a member of the American Choral Directors Association, the Music Educators National Conference and a member of the board of directors for Chorus America.
Before he became director of the Tabernacle Choir, he was an adjunct professor of music, advisor and special lecturer at the University of Utah, and taught and conducted music groups in school, churches and communities throughout Utah.
In a Church News interview, Brother Ottley said that he discovered his love for and talent in music when he was a young boy, having picked up his older brother's trombone and taking it to school for music lessons. He played in bands and orchestras in Salt Lake City while still in school. His orchestral leanings were eclipsed somewhat when, at age 17, he went with his parents to New Zealand, where his father served as mission president. There, he became interested in choral music.
He heard the Tabernacle Choir in person for the first time when he was a member of an Aaronic Priesthood chorus that sang in the Tabernacle on a number of occasions. "On one of those occasions, the Tabernacle Choir was rehearsing when we arrived. I'd heard the choir on the radio but that was the first time I heard them live. I was captured by that sound," he said.
He commented that it was interesting to look back and see the kinds of things that "just happen, and see they are all part of a network that brought you to the place where you ended up. Had I attempted to plan my life so that I would be director of the Tabernacle Choir, it would never have happened."
He said, "I never approached that podium without having the sense of disbelief that I was actually there. It never got easier. It was always as difficult as it was the first time. It's almost as if I've had a second-person relationship to it."
Of all the times and places he has directed the Tabernacle Choir, he said that the highlights have been during general conferences. "Helping to provide a worshipful experience while the prophets speak is the most satisfying thing that we've done," he said.
Sister Ottley is well known in the western United States for her work in recital, concert and operatic work. She studied at the University of Utah, Brigham Young University, the University of Oregon and at the Staalische Hochshule for Musik in Cologne, Germany, where, as a Fulbright student, she was a pupil of Josef Metternich.
She has appeared numerous times with the Utah Symphony and the Tabernacle Choir, in Salt Lake City as well as on tour, and with many other noted orchestras and conductors. She has sung in Brazil, Japan and Korea, as soloist with the Tivoli Symphony in Copenhagen, Denmark; at the Carmel and Oregon Bach festivals, the Grand Teton, Alaska and Bergen, Norway, music festivals; the Royal Albert Hall, London; the Doellen Concert Hall, Rotterdam, Holland; and in major concert halls of New Zealand and Australia.
Throughout her career, she has maintained an active studio of private students, many of whom are also singing professionally. She is a former adjunct professor at the University of Utah.
Brother and Sister Ottley are parents of one son and one daughter; they have one grandson.
At the choir's social event Dec. 3, President Hinckley described Sister Ottley as "a great musician." He said that when he was with the choir years ago during its tour in Japan, he sat with the American ambassador to Japan, who said that he had never heard a coloratura soprano equal to her. "That's a great tribute and, I think, an honest tribute given to her tremendous musicianship," President Hinckley said.
Brother and Sister Ottley expressed great respect and admiration for members of the Tabernacle Choir, paying tribute to the members' willingness to serve without complaint no matter how arduous their rehearsal and performing schedule, especially while on lengthy tours. Modest and unassuming, the Ottleys deflected applause and adulation from themselves to where they said it has been more productive — to the choir. Most of all, Brother Ottley said, they felt the need to "deflect the glory upwards, to the Giver of all good, even our Father in heaven."
Tabernacle Choir Pres. Wendell M. Smoot said that in the world of music awards take on the hues of metals. "There are gold awards for this, or silver for that. I would say that Jerry and JoAnn Ottley are pure platinum — at the top."
Pres. Smoot said it is not possible to describe what Brother and Sister Ottley have contributed to the Church during their years of service to the Tabernacle Choir. "Their service has been mind boggling," he said. "I'm grateful I've had the privilege of working with this magnificent couple."
Craig D. Jessop, newly appointed music director of the Tabernacle Choir, said: "You can liken to a cathedral our personal lives or the institutions to which we choose to dedicate our lives. We each place a brick or add our contribution. Many of the great cathedrals of Europe took a hundred or more years to build. Every generation added its part to the structure. In the institution of the Tabernacle Choir, Jerry and JoAnn Ottley have put in more than a brick; they've put in a couple of giant marble columns. There has been no one like them, and probably never will be. They're a unique, artistic and spiritual team."
