ZURICH — Performing to enthusiastic audiences in four European cities so far, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square have had “a tremendous unifying effect upon the people who listen to them,” said an LDS general authority who has been traveling with the performers during the first half of their 20-day, seven-city tour.
Elder L. Whitney Clayton made the comment in an interview Wednesday during a sound check rehearsal in Zurich prior to a concert at the Hallenstadion, a multipurpose sports and events center that seats up to 13,000 spectators for ice hockey, tennis and cycling contests as well as large concerts by popular performers.
This performance by the choir and orchestra, which drew some 4,000 attendees, differed from their three previous venues on this tour performed at concert halls in Berlin and Nuremberg, Germany, and Vienna.
“I have been so impressed to watch the audiences,” said Elder Clayton, the senior member of the Presidency of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “and to feel in the audiences this growing affection for the choir, for the music, for the spirit that people feel.”
Elder Clayton added, “I have been astonished, really to see that the choir and orchestra have this great capacity to touch people’s heart. I’ve seen that effect in every concert. I’ve felt that effect in every concert. The music is beautiful, the choir is dignified, the spirit of reverence is there and people who come to the concerts leave different people than they were when they came in.”
With nine days to go in the tour, choir president Ron Jarrett said the goals set for the tour have already been realized.
“The No. 1 goal was to bring the choir to the Saints and to the nonmembers of the church in Europe where we haven’t been for so long,” he said.
The choir’s last European tour was in 1998.
“I felt an assurance that they need us, that we needed to be here,” Jarrett said, his voice breaking with emotion. “I believe it will have been a great blessing to the people of Europe to have had this brief connection with the choir and with the church.”
Another goal, Jarrett said, was “for our people to realize that they’re not just singing to the camera on Sunday or to the people in Salt Lake City; they’re singing to the Saints everywhere.”
Each concert has been different, the choir president said, “because all the halls were different, and the way the choir approached them was a little different.”
For example, for a sold-out concert Sunday at the prestigious Musikverein in Vienna, because of the hall’s unusual configuration, a portion of the choir was seated on a balcony overlooking the stage and flanking the organist at the console, situated immediately beneath the distinctive pipes.
“So there was an ethereal kind of sound that came from the top down,” Jarrett said. “It was kind of magical to have that experience.”
The concert in Vienna was unusual for the choir and orchestra in that it was performed on Sunday and also because the proceeds from ticket sales, along with a donation from the church’s humanitarian fund, were given to the Caritas Austria charity to help residents in need as well as refugees.
At the Zurich concert, interpretation for the greetings and commentary given by announcer Lloyd Newell was provided in two languages – German and French – rather than just one.
“It has been fascinating to look in people’s eyes and talk to them before the concerts, then talk to them afterward,” Elder Clayton said. “I’ve heard people say, ‘I was in tears for the whole first half.’ I’ve heard people say, ‘I had no idea that music could move me the way this music has moved me.’”
His wife, Sister Kathy Ann Clayton, said at one of the concerts she was seated among several representatives of other churches.
“The man who was seated next to me was a very gracious, congenial priest, and I enjoyed becoming somewhat acquainted with him prior to the concert,” she said. “At intermission, he couldn’t turn to me fast enough when the applause died down to tell me, ‘I didn’t understand that the Mormons know God.’ He said, ‘Such a thing had never occurred to me, but the Mormons know God.’”
Jarrett added, “Music is truly an international language, so even though we’ve been speaking a lot of German and other German dialects so far on our tour and will speak other languages in the week ahead, the music can be felt and understood in any language.”
Attendees at the concerts have come from far-flung locations.
At the Zurich concert, a choir of young adults ages 18-35, who hail from throughout Switzerland and southern Germany, came to attend the sound check and to indulge their love of the Tabernacle Choir’s music.
“We meet once a month to rehearse,” said director Sara Seidl. “We’re all nonprofessionals. We just like to sing and to testify.”
Perhaps the concert attendee who came the farthest was 82-year-old Trevor Clarke of Melbourne, Australia. He had had what he characterizes as a “love affair” with the choir since age 18 when he found a choir broadcast while living in New Zealand and was enthralled with the voice of Richard L. Evans, a member of the church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles who, for 41 years, was the announcer for the choir’s broadcast
Clarke lost track of the choir when he moved to Australia years later but found it again one day while listening to his Walkman radio. He hasn’t missed a Sunday-morning broadcast since then.
Since 2013, when he first came to Salt Lake City, he has formed a strong friendship with choir personnel, including Newell and organist Clay Christiansen, who arranged for Clarke to come for concerts during the European tour.
“I’m not a Mormon,” he said. “I’m not anything. I just love my music, and to me, this is just the greatest choir in the world.”
