For participants of Sea Trek 2001, the American premiere of the production, "Saints on the Seas" was a musical re-visit to the immigrants of the past, tall ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean, as well as a grand reunion.
The musical was part of the commemorative European and cross-Atlantic voyage of tall ships called Sea Trek 2001, said DeAnn Sadleir, co-chairman of the sponsoring Sea Trek 2001 Foundation.
"With the help of over 2,000 volunteers, Sea Trek was a phenomenal success," said Sister Sadleir at the start of the program. "Eight vintage tall ships went to ten different ports of call, and there we celebrated the commemoration of our European heritage."
Nearly 3,000 people, many of them participants and their friends and families, gathered Jan. 8 in the Cottonwood Concert Center where an orchestra, choral group and soloists performed the oratorio-like musical, laced with experiences of humor and pathos, that portrayed immigrants leaving their native lands and crossing the ocean.
The concert was originally scheduled to be performed in Madison Square Garden in New York, but was moved to Salt Lake City because of the events of Sept. 11, 2001.
Included in the program were numbers by Enoch Train, a folk ensemble; and T-minus Friday, a youth group. "Saints on the Seas" was presented by an 83-piece orchestra assembled just for this program, a 250-voice choral group made up of singers from West Jordan High School as well as two singers who traveled from England; and soloists Kathryn Laycock Little, soprano; George Dyer, tenor; Jenny Frogley, contralto; and Greg Pearson, baritone.
"We came because of the power of the music," said Cheryl Hindley, who with Mary H. Tawfik sang in the choir in Liverpool, which performed in the Anglican Cathedral. "The whole experience was amazing."
The music, solos and speaking parts tell of the odyssey of early immigrants leaving their homeland and family members forever, embarking on the new experience of life aboard a ship, losing a child to be buried at sea, and arriving in America to become pioneers bound for the Great Basin. At a dramatic moment, a storm at sea is musically portrayed. The music and lyrics were composed by Cori Conners, Kurt Bestor and Mark Robinette. Brother Robinette also conducted.
At the conclusion, the performers received a standing ovation — applause that appropriately served as the final punctuation mark of the two-year Sea Trek 2001 project.
Before and after the concert, with hugs and handshakes, participants renewed associations with those with whom they had bunked, hauled ropes and stood watch on one of eight tall ships that took part in the three-month sailing commemoration.
Also before the program began, a flag that had been given to Sea Trek 2001 by the mayor of the city of Esbjerg, Denmark, where the flotilla of ships began their cross-Atlantic trek, was presented to Dennis Smith, representing Alpine, Utah, which has a community of Danish immigrant descendants. The flag, which was carried across the ocean on the ship Statsraad Lehmkuhl, will fly in Alpine during the Olympics, he said.
William K. Sadleir, chairman of Sea Trek 2001, announced that permission had been received from ports in Scotland, Norway, Sweden and Germany to place statues honoring LDS immigrants. To accomplish this, the Pioneer Heritage Foundation has been created www.pioneerheritage.org to gather support from individual and family organizations for the project. One of the statues will be on display in downtown Salt Lake City during the Olympics.
"One of the most spectacular things about Sea Trek were the bridges of cooperation and understanding that were developed with some of the community leaders," he said.
"Despite the fact that more than 10 million immigrants passed through Liverpool, there was not a single monument to an immigrant in all of Liverpool until now. Even though our people represent less than 1 percent of the all the immigrants who came through Liverpool, it is their memory that is being remembered on the Albert docks. Oslo, Norway; Hamburg, Germany; and Gothenburg, Sweden, will allow us to place sculptures in these locations." — John L. Hart
