Editor’s note: This was updated on Wednesday, Feb. 25, with information about Marcos Rangel of the Orchestra at Temple Square.
SÃO PAULO, Brazil — When Alan Silva first heard The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square sing as a 17-year-old in Brazil, he knew he needed to learn more about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The missionaries had brought over a VCR and a tape of general conference. Silva listened to the talks, but it was the music that changed him.
“I remember the feeling was so overwhelming,” recalled Silva, who now sings second tenor in the Tabernacle Choir and lives in Millcreek, Utah. “And I looked at the missionaries and said, ‘You need to teach me tonight.’
“And I was baptized a week later — all because of the music of the choir,” he said of his baptism in 1985.
Silva, 57, who is from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is returning to his home country this week for The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square’s “Songs of Hope” — “Canções de Esperança” in Portuguese — tour stop from Feb. 23 to March 1 in São Paulo, Brazil. (See below for information on streaming the concert on Saturday, Feb. 28.) The choir and orchestra are continuing the celebration of the 100th anniversary of missionary work in South America.
Silva and Alvaro Martins are the two choir members from Brazil. Martins, who sings baritone, was living in Natal, Brazil, before moving to Pleasant Grove, Utah. Marcos Rangel, who plays the cello in the Orchestra at Temple Square, is from Rio de Janeiro and now lives in Herriman, Utah.
There are two more global members of the choir from Brazil: Thalita Carvalho, of São Paulo, who sings second soprano; and Rodrigo Domaredzky of Curitiba, Brazil, who sings second tenor.
Now a permanent program, 10 to 12 singers from around the world join the Tabernacle Choir for general conferences. The global members have a similar four-phase audition process, and it’s anticipated each member will sing twice in general conference within five years.
All the Brazil natives say it’s a dream come true for the choir and orchestra to perform in Brazil.
There are also a dozen more choir and orchestra members who have served missions in Brazil, and many more with ties to the country, including through family or employment.
Alan Silva: Feeling the Spirit through music
After his baptism, Silva said his bishop invited him to learn how to play the piano as there wasn’t a pianist in their ward. Then he took voice lessons, too.
“I just loved the feelings the music was bringing to me,” he said of the piano lessons in an interview prior to leaving for Brazil this week.
He served a mission in Curitiba from 1992 to 1994. He married his wife in 1995 — they celebrated their 31st wedding anniversary on Feb. 17 — and later the family, including two daughters, moved to São Paulo and then to the United States.
“It’s so easy to feel the Spirit through music, especially sacred music,” Silva said. And as a choir member, he shares his testimony of Jesus Christ and the gospel through music.
When Silva and his family moved to the United States, he attended a “Music & the Spoken Word” broadcast — his first time hearing the choir in person — and said it was one of “the most exciting things that happened in my life.”
He wanted to audition but was concerned about his English-language skills; he also worked nights at the time. Several years later, in 2015, he applied for the choir and didn’t make it, but received a letter with things to work on. Eight years later, he auditioned again and made it. He’s sung in the choir since 2023.
“Brazil is a beautiful country, but with a lot of difficulties that [are] hard to work through,” Silva said. “But they do it, and they do it while being happy. I think the choir is going to bring more happiness and more hope for them.”
Alvaro Martins: Feeling God’s love through music
After a successful audition, Martins began singing with the Tabernacle Choir in 2022.
“I had joined the choir, and it was the dream of my life,” said Martins, 43. But a few months later, he had to move back to Brazil for work.
Then he was invited to be part of the pilot group of global members that sang with the choir during the April 2023 general conference.
Martins came back for the October 2025 general conference. In the meantime, he worked with his company to obtain a visa and return to the United States. He’s now sung with the choir for three months, said the father of two who lives in Pleasant Grove.
“Music was one of the things that brought me closer to the Divine as a child,” Martins said.
Martins’ mother joined the Church in Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, before he was born — and she’s one of the pioneering members in the area.
“She would save money to make the annual trip to the São Paulo Brazil Temple,” he said of the trip that consisted of three days of travel there, a week working in the temple and three days of travel back.
When Martins was a teenager, his mother helped him save money so he could also attend the temple.
He also remembers singing in stake choirs with his aunt and the uplifting feelings he had through music. The same aunt invited Martins to learn piano so they could have an accompanist in sacrament meeting — learning one part at a time, starting with the melody. He had to relearn parts of it as he was one key off.
Martins, who served a mission in Ribeirão Preto, Brazil, was in the Conference Center choir loft when the late President Russell M. Nelson announced a temple for the city where he lived, Natal, Brazil, in 2023. Later, Martins was invited to direct the choir at the groundbreaking.
He hopes people at the concert leave knowing “there is a God and that He loves them and that He wants them to love their neighbors and do good all around the world.”
Marcos Rangel: ‘Huge blessing in my life’
The music of the Tabernacle Choir and orchestra was a consistent part of his life where grew up in Campos dos Goytacazes, in northern Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil. His parents joined the Church before Rangel was born. The family listened to “Music & the Spoken Word” and would get the DVDs of the Christmas concerts.
Rangel and a friend, who also played the cello but wasn’t a member of the Church, would watch the recordings of the choir and orchestra performing.
“He still remembers how we would imagine playing with them,” Rangel said of the orchestra. It was through watching the orchestra that the two decided to pursue music professionally.
Rangel, now 37, has been a member of the orchestra since 2023. The married father of three young children is currently in a master’s degree program at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and found out Tuesday, Jan. 24, that he was accepted into the school’s Doctor of Musical Arts program.
“It has been a huge blessing in my life,” he said of playing in the orchestra, noting there are sacrifices, too.
Rangel started playing the cello with his twin brother Mateus Rangel when they were 13 and when a cousin was putting together a youth orchestra program where they lived in Campos dos Goytacazes, in northern Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil. They had originally hoped to play the violin, but there weren’t any violin spots.
The following year, when the twins were 14, their ward didn’t have a pianist. Their father, who was serving as bishop, invited them to play their cellos as the accompanists for sacrament meeting.
“I believe because we served that way, my cello playing was improving,” he said. “Because we needed to play every Sunday. That helped the tone, intonation, rhythm.”
Marcos Rangel served as an accompanist until he was 17, when he graduated from high school and moved to the city of Rio de Janeiro for university. He pursued music and lived in Rio after graduation.
Rangel said that during a recent rehearsal for the tour, he got emotional as the choir practiced singing hymns in Portuguese.
“I hope that my people will feel God’s love for them, they will feel heaven close and that we are all children of the same God,” he said.
Global members: Music as a ‘sacred way to testify’
Carvalho and Domaredzky were part of the pilot group in April 2023. Domaredzky returned for the April 2025 general conference, and Carvalho also sang in the October 2025 general conference.
Domaredzky, 31, said he “never thought it would be possible to be in the choir while living in a different hemisphere, or to see the choir perform in my country — and even less to be part of their performances for my people.”
He talked about how he’s seen the choir “going out of their way to help members of the Church from all over the world feel included and seen.”
He hopes people who attend the concerts, whether in person or virtually, feel the love of the Savior, Jesus Christ. “The message the choir is bringing is a message of hope — a hope that comes through the love of Christ,” he wrote in an email to Church News.
Carvalho, 38, said: “For me, music is a sacred way to testify of Jesus Christ. Being able to do that in Brazil through the choir feels like a unique and tender blessing, a moment where my love for my country and my testimony of the Savior come together in a very personal way.”
There is already anticipation building around the choir and orchestra’s concerts, said Carvalho, whose background is in choral conducting.
“The choir carries a message of faith and love that invites people to draw closer to the Savior,” she wrote in an email to Church News, adding, “It will be a sacred opportunity to feel the Savior’s invitation to come closer to Him and place their hope in Him through sacred and inspiring music.”
How to watch
The Tabernacle Choir and orchestra will perform in Ginásio do Ibirapuera — the same venue where it performed in 1981 — on Friday, Feb. 27; Saturday, Feb. 28; and Sunday, March 1. Tickets have been distributed for the concerts.
The concert on Saturday at 6 p.m. Brasília Standard Time, 2 p.m. Mountain Standard Time, will be streamed live on the Tabernacle Choir’s YouTube channel.
There are more than 500 watch parties planned across Brazil.
