Tabernacle Choir, Orchestra arrive in Brazil for ‘Songs of Hope’ tour stop

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — After 45 years since the last time The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square performed in Brazil, members of the choir, the Orchestra at Temple Square and staff members returned to the country for a series of concerts for the “Songs of Hope” tour, or “Canções de Esperança” in Portuguese.

Leslie Johnson, a first soprano, said she was thrilled to be in Brazil. “We get to spread hope and joy,” she said of the concerts later in the week.

At each tour stop, “it’s wonderful to meet the people,” she added.

A few years ago, Johnson and her family met university students from Brazil in Salt Lake City and became friends. Even as their friends moved back to Brazil, they’ve kept in touch — and they have plans to meet up.

The choir and orchestra’s concerts on Friday, Feb. 27, and Saturday, Feb. 28, and devotional on Sunday, March 1, are in the Ginásio do Ibirapuera — the same venue the choir performed at in Brazil in 1981. Tickets have been distributed for the concerts.

The concert on Saturday, Feb. 28, at 6 p.m. Brasília Standard Time, 2 p.m. Mountain Standard Time, will be streamed live on the Tabernacle Choir’s YouTube channel. The concert will be available for on-demand streaming after the concert for about a year.

The 320 Tabernacle Choir singers and 69 Orchestra at Temple Square instrumentalists arrived late Monday, Feb. 23, and when they arrived at the hotel in the early morning hours of Tuesday, Feb. 24, musicians and dancers presented cultural numbers.

As choir and orchestra members travel together, it has the feel of a reunion, with people visiting, playing games and also getting to know each other.

Tuesday evening, they went to a local cultural center for Brazilian food and traditional music and dances.

Tabernacle Choir, Orchestra in Brazil

The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra’s stop in São Paulo, Brazil, is the sixth on the “Songs of Hope” tour. It is the third in South America with stops in Lima, Peru, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2025; and continues the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Church in South America.

In December 1925, Elder Melvin J. Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles offered a prayer in Buenos Aires, Argentina, dedicating the South American continent for the preaching of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.

With more than 1.5 million Church members across nearly 2,100 congregations, Brazil is home to the third-highest number of Latter-day Saints, after the United States and Mexico.

The late President Russell M. Nelson, 17th President of the Church, said in 2017: “Brazil is part of the heart of the Church.”

Elder Ulisses Soares of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who is from Brazil, has seen the Church grow in his native country in his lifetime.

In 1966, the first stake in South America was established in São Paulo. Brazil’s first temple and the first temple in South America — the São Paulo Brazil Temple — was dedicated in 1978, when Elder Soares was serving a mission in the country. The Tabernacle Choir performed there in 1981.

Now, there are 24 temples in operation, under construction or in planning across the country: 11 operating temples, five under construction and eight in planning.

“What a beautiful endeavor,” Elder Soares said of how many things have been worked to “establish the gospel of Jesus Christ in our country.”

He noted how “people in Brazil are very joyful,” they come from many cultures, and “everything is a motive to have a party.”

“When we face difficulties, Brazilians find a way to find joy,” Elder Soares said.

When he was in Lima, Peru, with the Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square a year ago, he saw how the concerts opened doors to meeting with the country’s leaders, including the president.

“Then the choir really opened those doors for us to help establish relationships,” Elder Soares said. He met with the ambassador to the United States, and she attended the interfaith concert, along with three of the government’s ministers.

“It was a great, great opportunity to strengthen relationships and to reinforce our desire to contribute to the community,” he said.

Elder Soares attended the concert in 1981 as a young adult.

“Music touches hearts and speaks the language of the heavens and people feel the love of the Savior and God through music,” he said.

The ‘Songs of Hope’ tour

The multicity and multicountry tour started in 2023 in Mexico City, Mexico; continued in 2024 to Manila, Philippines, in February and to Florida and Georgia in the southeastern United States in September.

In 2025, the tour continued to Lima, Peru, in February and to Buenos Aires, Argentina, in August as they helped celebrate 100 years of the Church in South America. The concerts from Peru and Argentina are still available for streaming.

On all of the stops, select concerts have been available on YouTube, with area Church members and congregations encouraged to hold watch parties.

The concerts feature local guest artists. The choir sings some music in the language of the country they are visiting. Also, the choir and orchestra members — the musical missionaries — testify of the Savior, Jesus Christ.

The concerts have brought “a spirit of hope and a feeling of gratitude for Savior, Jesus Christ, and what He’s done for each of us as individuals and his families,” said President Gary B. Porter, second counselor in the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square presidency.

“For us to come and share the gospel message through music has been a real joy,” President Porter said.

President Porter said that even before the choir and orchestra members arrive, invitation cards have been created for members and missionaries to invite their friends to watch the concerts and a QR code to share the choir’s music.

“That missionary effort before the choir comes has just created an energy and an anticipation that has been really wonderful,” he said.

April Murray, a second soprano in the choir, said that she was very excited when she heard Brazil was one of the tour stops. “I’ve always wanted to come to Brazil. And it’s beautiful and the food is great and amazing.”

Murray served a mission on Temple Square in downtown Salt Lake City and had a missionary companion from Brazil. Her former missionary companion died a couple years ago of a brain tumor, and Murray has thought of her in preparing for the travel assignment. Murray also got to know other sisters from the country who were serving in the mission whom she has also kept in touch with, several of whom will be going to the concerts.

On Tuesday during a devotional, the choir and orchestra learned more about the Church in Brazil, including an experience at the 1981 concert, during a devotional and also visited the Northeastern Traditions Center, where they had Brazilian food and danced to a live band playing traditional music.

During the afternoon devotional, Elder Joni L. Koch, General Authority Seventy and the Church’s Brazil Area president, said that “Brazil is the real melting pot.” He said in addition to musical excellence and singing hymns of the restored gospel, what makes the Tabernacle Choir and orchestra unique is singing under the influence of the Spirit.

“And I pray that you will sing under the influence of the Holy Ghost. May your music bring many people … closer to God and to Jesus Christ during your stay,” he said. His wife, Sister Michele Koch, also attended the devotional.

Marisa Saito, an executive assistant in the area office, both shared about her experience as a 13-year-old girl attending the Tabernacle Choir’s concert in Brazil. “The experience was unforgettable. … It’s difficult to describe the joy I felt as I saw and heard the choir sing. It was a deeply special experience.”

Also part of the devotional was a conversation between choir President Michael O. Leavitt and the Rev. Dr. Amos C. Brown, pastor emeritus of the Third Baptist Church in San Francisco, California, and a friend of the late President Russell M. Nelson; Jean Stevens, who is part of the choir staff, also spoke. Rev. Brown was accompanied by his wife, Jane Brown.

Rev. Brown noted how music made an impact in his life growing up in Mississippi as his family’s Sundays included listening to the Wings Over Jordan Choir, an a cappella group from Ohio, and “Music & the Spoken Word” by the Tabernacle Choir.

“I long remember that rich, rewarding and most inclusive experience,” he said, adding, “because we all learn through music that we are all children of God.”

He pointed to the hymn “Come, Come Ye Saints” (“Hymns,” No. 30) and quoted some of the lyrics, and shared how this hymn and “Lift Up Your Voice and Sing” helped give perspective to challenges.

Rev. Brown said that for him, the legacy of President Nelson will be the Church’s humanitarian efforts and also that members of the Church of Jesus Christ goes about “doing justice, loving mercy and walking humbly with our God.”

History of the Church in Brazil

The Church first arrived in Brazil in 1913 through German converts. For many years, German immigrants made up the main body of the Church. In 1939, Portuguese became the official language of the Church in Brazil, and 16,000 people were baptized in less than a decade.

The Book of Mormon was published in Portuguese in 1940. São Paulo is part of two firsts in South America: the first stake in 1966 and the first temple in 1978.

The country’s 11 operating temples include the São Paulo (dedicated in 1978), Recife (2000), Porto Alegre (2000), Campinas (2002), Curitiba (2008), Manaus (2012), Fortaleza (2019), Rio de Janeiro (2022), Belém (2022), Brasília (2023) and Salvador (2024) temples.

The five houses of the Lord under construction in Brazil are the Belo Horizonte (since 2023), Ribeirão Preto (2024), Londrina (2024) and Natal (2025) and João Pessoa temple, with its groundbreaking on Jan. 24.

That leaves eight temples in planning and design stages, for São Paulo East (announced 2020), Vitória (2021), Maceió (2022), Santos (2022), Teresina (2023), Goiânia (2023), Florianópolis (2024) and Campo Grande (2025).