It was definitely play acting, contrived for the demands of movie making, but for a couple of hours in the Salt Lake Tabernacle on Dec. 3, it was possible to get a feel for what it must have been like on July 15, 1929, when the Mormon Tabernacle Choir presented its first radio broadcast.
The event was re-created for a documentary by prominent filmmaker Lee Groberg for airing on public television stations. Production of the film coincides with the commemoration this year of 75 years of continuous broadcasting by the choir. Like previous projects on Church history subjects, it is a collaboration between Brother Groberg and Heidi Swinton, who is writing the companion volume.
For the filming, current and former choir members were recruited to fill roughly two-thirds of the choir seats. In period-style clothing, the group affected the appearance of a group of 1920s choir members who had put on their Sunday best for this historic occasion. This, of course, would have been before the advent of television and the need for visual uniformity in the choir.
They portrayed performances of "Gently Raise the Sacred Strain" and "The Morning Breaks, the Shadows Flee." They lip-synced to recordings from the choir program "Music and the Spoken Word," the former from 1948 and the latter from 1939. Though the recordings were not from the original 1929 program, they had an archival feel that will lend authenticity to the re-creation, director Groberg said.
Current choir director Craig Jessop introduced Tom Rogerson as a member of the re-created choir, noting that Brother Rogerson's father, Ken, was in the choir when it presented the 1929 broadcast. When Brother Jessop himself was a member of the choir in the early 1970s, he sat next to the younger Rogerson. "I wanted to make sure Tom was here today," he said.
K. Newell Dayley of the BYU music faculty portrayed Anthony C. Lund, who was choir director in 1929. Organist Michael Ohman portrayed Edward P. Kimball, the Tabernacle organist who accompanied the choir for that first broadcast. Brother Kimball's son, Ted, just 19 at the time, was the announcer for the first radio program.
The scene portrayal corrects previous accounts that a single microphone, in order to capture the sound from the choir, was suspended from the Tabernacle ceiling, making it necessary for the announcer to climb a step ladder to access the microphone. Brother Groberg said current research indicates that the microphone was on a stand which was placed atop the speaker's pulpit to gain the necessary height for the microphone.
That's how it was played out in the re-creation, with Brother Groberg's son, Jonathan, portraying young Ted Kimball, ascending the step ladder, leaning toward the microphone and reading from the radio script.
Brother Groberg said completion of the documentary is expected in May with a premiere date in July and tentative broadcast dates in September and October. Like previous Groberg-Swinton projects, it will be marketed nationally to public television stations.
E-mail: rscott@desnews.com
