Starting Sunday, July 30, the weekly “Music & the Spoken Word” will begin a pilot broadcast in Spanish — with Spanish-speaking narrators and other features.
It will be available on The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square’s Spanish YouTube channel www.youtube.com/@elcorodeltabernaculo and also through several Spanish-language television and radio stations (see list below). The first episode is at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4kwxskLiaY
It will stream at 9:30 a.m. on Sunday mornings — the same time as the live broadcast in English. And both will be available for on-demand viewing.
In June, the Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square launched their multiyear, multicountry global tour to share hope through music with concerts in the National Auditorium in Mexico City, Mexico. Also, one of the concerts was livestreamed.
“The ‘Music & the Spoken Word’ has been available on the internet in Mexico and other Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries,” Tabernacle Choir President Mike Leavitt said during an interview in Mexico. The English broadcast has either been captioned in Spanish or dubbed, which doesn’t always convey the same feeling.
In Mexico City, Leavitt said he saw how people lined up outside the auditorium and waited in the hot sun hours before the concert started.
“It was so moving to me to have them want to tell me a story about the meaning of the Tabernacle Choir in their life, of how it linked them with their parents, and of how it causes them to feel things inside,” Leavitt said. “And the fact that they are now going to have access to that, in their own language, on a weekly basis is not just exciting to me. It is a profoundly important development in all Spanish and Portuguese countries where there are Latter-day Saints.”
The “Music & the Spoken Word,” which originates in Salt Lake City, first aired on July 15, 1929, and is a half-hour program featuring music and a non-denominational uplifting message.
The components of the broadcast will be in Spanish — including the graphics, text and images featuring landscapes and the lifestyles and cultures of Spanish-speaking people throughout the world. The pilot was delayed from June 25 due to technical issues. There are also plans to expand it to Portuguese.
The initial pilot of “Music & the Spoken Word” in Spanish will feature a rotation of four narrators: Alex Melecio, Ana Yslas, Pepe Valle and Garna Mejia.
Melecio was one of the guest artists at the choir and orchestra’s tour in Mexico and also at the recent summer concert. He said, in an interview in Mexico, that he’s helped with the Spanish voiceovers in the past.
With native speakers as the narrators, Melecio said, “It will allow people to connect at a whole different level.”
Lloyd Newell, the longtime announcer for the Tabernacle Choir, will continue to write the “Spoken Word” messages. The “Spoken Word” has also been incorporating different formats with interviews and prerecorded messages, including those recorded on-location outside of the Salt Lake Tabernacle or the Conference Center.
Closed captioning of the “Spoken Word” in 16 languages is available on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ international Facebook pages and includes language subtitles for the spoken introduction and concluding sign-off, the song titles and the “Spoken Word” message. See www.thetabernaclechoir.org/articles/music-and-the-spoken-word-additional-languages.html for the languages and links to the Facebook pages.
How to watch ‘Music & the Spoken Word’ in Spanish
“Music & the Spoken Word” in Spanish will be streamed at 9:30 a.m., Mountain Time, on the Tabernacle Choir’s Spanish YouTube channel www.youtube.com/@elcorodeltabernaculo
The first episode is at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4kwxskLiaY
The “Music & the Spoken Word” is carried by two Spanish-language television stations and a radio station in Mexico; one television station each in Costa Rica, Colombia, Chile and Puerto Rico; and a Spanish radio station in Venezuela, according to musicandthespokenword.com/viewers-listeners/airing-schedules. Check local listings for air times.
Mexico
- Aguascalientes, Mexico: Ultra Channel 30 - Xalapa (TV)
- Pueblo, Mexico: Ultra Puebla XHZM-92.5 FM (Radio)
- Cuernavaca, Mexico: Ultra Channel 30 - Cuernavaca (TV)
Central America
- Cuidad Quesada, Costa Rica: TV Norte Canal 14 (TV)
South America
- Medellin, Colombia: E-motion (TV)
- San Juan De Los Morros, Venezuela: Expresion (Radio)
- Hualqui, Chile: RDO (TV)
Caribbean
- Aguadilla, Puerto Rico: WOLE-DT (TV)
There are also more than a dozen Spanish-language radio and television stations in the U.S. and Canada that air “Music & the Spoken Word,” including in Ontario, California, Florida, Idaho, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee and Utah. See musicandthespokenword.com/viewers-listeners/airing-schedules. Check local listings for air times.
For more on how to watch the Tabernacle Choir, both online and in-person, see thetabernaclechoir.org/music-spoken-word
Tabernacle Choir’s 3 pilot projects
Expanding the “Music & the Spoken Word” into Spanish and Portuguese is one of three pilot projects the Tabernacle Choir leaders announced last November.
The second project about the choir’s travel — assignments would be shorter and more frequent — and launching the global, multiyear tour with concerts in Mexico.
The third pilot project was to better reflect the global membership and bring qualified singers from around the world to sing with the choir during the April 2023 general conference. Ten singers from six countries sang with the choir in the Saturday morning and the two Sunday afternoon sessions. It was the first time singers outside of the United States joined the choir for general conference.
Correction: Ultra Puebla XHZM-92.5 FM in Pueblo, Mexico, was listed as a television station. It is a radio station.
