SUNRISE, Florida — Latin music welcomed The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square members as they arrived earlier this week in southeastern Florida this week to begin the Florida and Georgia stops on the multicity, multiyear “Songs of Hope” tour.
Their first concert Saturday, Sept. 7, 7 p.m. Eastern time, at the Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise, Florida, will feature Adassa, who has won Golden Globe, Oscar and Grammy awards and is known at the voice of Delores in “Encanto;” and Alex Melecio, who is also one of the Spanish language hosts for “Music & the Spoken Word.” Both performed with the choir and orchestra during the tour stop in Mexico in June 2023 and during the summer concert in July 2023.
The bilingual concert will feature music and dialogue in Spanish and English that reflect the Latin traditions in Florida and the southeastern United States.
On Friday, Sept. 6, the choir and orchestra rehearsed in the arena, and director Mack Wilberg and associate director Ryan Murphy met with more than 30 local music directors.
Then the choir and orchestra will go to Atlanta, Georgia, for two concerts — one at the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel on the Morehouse College campus on Sept. 9 and another at the State Farm Arena on Sept. 11, both at 7 p.m. At both concerts, they will be singing with the Morehouse College and Spelman College glee clubs. Glee club members came to Salt Lake City and sang during the choir’s weekly “Music & the Spoken Word” broadcast.
In April 2023, Morehouse College officials presented President Russell M. Nelson, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the school’s inaugural laureate of the Gandhi-King-Mandela Peace Prize.
“We were invited to sing, and through that began a relationship,” Leavitt said.
During the “Music & the Spoken Word” broadcast, the combined choirs showcased more than 400 voices, including some 60 singers from the historically Black colleges, accompanied by The Orchestra at Temple Square in the Salt Lake Tabernacle.
“We concluded to keep this going. It was a delightful, wonderful event, and we hope to replicate that again,” Leavitt said.
All three concerts will be livestreamed on the choir’s YouTube channel, on broadcasts.ChurchofJesusChrist.org and on the Gospel Stream app, and the two arena concerts will be available for on-demand viewing. (See www.choirworldtour.com for streaming information.) There are also watch parties across the southeastern U.S. to view the concerts live.
The choir and orchestra will also perform in the Georgia state capitol building on Sept. 11 as part of a ceremony commemorating the anniversary of 9/11.
The tour is “an opportunity for us to be more visible in the world and carry out our mission to share a sense of faith and peace and healing to the world,” Tabernacle Choir President Michael O. Leavitt said before the choir and orchestra left on the tour.
Both concerts in Amerant Bank Arena and State Farm Arena are sold out with standby tickets available, Leavitt said. See www.choirworldtour.com for ticketing information.
It’s been more than two decades since The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square have been to the Sunshine State. They were last here in 2001 as part of the Southern States Tour to Houston and Fort Worth, Texas; New Orleans, Louisiana; Birmingham, Alabama; Atlanta, Georgia; and Tampa, Orlando and Miami, Florida. Then, only 17 orchestra members accompanied the choir.
This week, 310 choir members and 69 orchestra members arrived in Florida. As choir members serve up to 20 years or until they are 60 years old, it’s the first time for them to be here.
Family ties to Florida and Georgia
Sheila Sconiers, who sings second soprano in the choir, has family, including aunts, uncles and cousins, who live in Florida and Georgia, and she previously visited them when she was younger.
“I’m looking forward to having that experience of being where the [family] roots took hold,” she said, as the Sconiers name has roots in Florida. Family members and friends of her family who live in Georgia are planning to attend the concerts there — and it will be the first time for them to see her sing in person.
Her mother was introduced to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while serving in the U.S. Coast Guard on the East Coast. Sconiers has lived in Utah since she was a child.
She’s looking forward to singing the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College, which is a historically Black university.
“It seems like a miraculous thing,” Sconiers said of the opportunities to sing with glee clubs and also sing on the college campus. When she joined the choir 14 years ago, it’s not one of the experiences she anticipated.
Singing with the glee club members in October was an important experience for Sconiers.
“It really spoke to the idea that these two identities don’t have to compete,” she said of being a Black member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Sconiers has been in the choir for 14 years and has been on multiple tours to different parts of the U.S., Europe and Canada.
“I feel very blessed to have had the opportunity to see places that I probably wouldn’t see in the manner that I saw them,” she said of singing with the choir. “It’s a really great experience.”
‘Bringing joy to others’: Tabernacle Choir conductors meet with local music directors
Prior to the choir’s rehearsal on Friday, Sept. 6, Wilberg and Murphy met with more than 30 music directors and others associated with college, high school and community musical groups across southeastern Florida.
Wilberg and Murphy shared about the choir’s history, audition process, logistics and efficient rehearsals for the all-volunteer choir and orchestra. Questions ranged from conducting style and arranging music to song selection and motivating young singers.
The Tabernacle Choir sings 300 to 400 songs a year, with about 100 in their “core repertoire,” Wilberg said.
“We have to be very shrewd in the way that we program, because we don’t have a lot of time to spend as a group rehearsing new music,” Wilberg said.
One of the challenges with directing the choir is that in the Salt Lake Tabernacle and in the Conference Center, the choir is spread out, and it’s difficult for people to hear one another.
Wilberg and Murphy estimated from where the conductor sits to the top row of singers that it can be comparable to half a football field.
“When we come on tours and the orchestra is right there and the choir is directly behind them, this is a luxury for us,” Wilberg said.
Murphy noted that people “consume media in 30-second clips now. So to hold their attention for a program and for an evening of music is even more challenging than it used to be.”
In picking a program, Wilberg looks for variety and cohesion to be able to find pieces that are different in texture and tempo, but also go together.
Some of the skills that choir members learn are singing with microphones all around and also being on camera. “We have a saying that ‘80% of everything we do also has camera shots.’” Wilberg said.
“We always have the saying that people listen with their eyes,” Wilberg said.
In addition to working with volunteer musicians in both the choir and orchestra, there’s also many more who help in other capacities, including librarians, wardrobe and stage crew.
“There’s something great about working volunteer musicians in that they do it because they love it and for the joy, and that’s what we experience,” Wilberg said. He added, “I just feel like there’s something to be said for the joy of making music together with people who want to be there and are there not only for their own edification, but for bringing joy to others when they share their talents with others.”
Tabernacle Choir, Orchestra’s ‘Hope’ tour
Other stops on the Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra’s multiyear, multicity “Hope” tour have been to Mexico and to the Philippines.
In June 2023, the choir and orchestra’s first stop was in Mexico, where the choir and orchestra performed at the Toluca Cathedral and two “Esperanza” concerts in Mexico City’s National Auditorium, which seats about 10,000 people. The two concerts in the National Auditorium featured guest artist singers Adassa and Melecio and radio host Mariano Osorio and shared messages and songs of hope.
The Philippines was the second stop on the “Hope” tour, in February 2024, with a sacred music concert and two concerts in the SM Mall of Asia Arena. It featured singers Lea Salonga and Ysabella Cuevas and hosts Suzi Entrata-Abrera and Paolo Abrera.
Previously, the choir and orchestra’s tours or travel assignments have been every few years with stops in many countries in a single trip and appearing mostly at small concert halls. Now, the choir and orchestra are traveling twice a year for shorter times and performing in larger venues.
More photos of the Tabernacle Choir in Florida
Here are photos of the Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra arriving in Florida and of their first rehearsal at Amerant Bank Arena.
Church News’ coverage of the ‘Songs of Hope’ southeastern U.S. tour stops in Florida and Georgia
- Tabernacle Choir, Orchestra in Florida for first concert of southeastern U.S. ‘Songs of Hope’ tour stop
- Singer Adassa returns to southern Florida roots for Tabernacle Choir, Orchestra ‘Songs of Hope’ bilingual concert
- ‘Spectacular’: Tabernacle Choir and the Morehouse and Spelman colleges’ glee clubs combine together as they sing, testify of Savior through music
- What the Morehouse and Spelman college glee clubs are saying about performing with the Tabernacle Choir in Georgia
- Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra perform at the Georgia State Capitol
- Kristin Chenoweth surprise guest artist at Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra’s final tour concert in Georgia
- How to watch the Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra’s concerts in Florida and Georgia
- See photos of watch parties across southeastern U.S. for Tabernacle Choir, Orchestra’s ‘Songs of Hope’ concerts
