From Deseret News archives:
Choir nears apex of yearlong salute
Osgood joins in marking 75th anniversary
The choir and Osgood will this evening culminate a yearlong celebration kicked off in New York City last July. As a special guest, Osgood will have the opportunity to hear the Tabernacle Choir sing one of his own compositions, "The Pledge of Allegiance."
"No choir in the world sings patriotic hymns like this choir does," he said during a meeting with reporters Friday at the Conference Center.
Osgood, who is a longtime friend and fan of the choir, has narrated various events worldwide and said he feels privileged to read scriptural verse as part of a program.
"When you're reading some wonderful words and the choir is humming in the background, you feel as if you are floating on an enormous cloud of sound," he said.
Tonight's gala concert at the Conference Center will include music interspersed with excerpts from "America's Choir," a documentary video produced for PBS television by Lee Groberg , with dialogue written by Heidi Swinton. Retired choir directors Gerald Ottley and Donald Riplinger will return as guest conductors. President Gordon B. Hinckley of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will speak.
"The music has been chosen to reflect the diversity of the programming and history of the broadcast," said Mormon Tabernacle Choir director Craig Jessop. He said the concert will include "great hymns of the Christian faith, choral masterworks, beloved folk songs, patriotic songs and inspirational songs of Broadway and Hollywood."
Sunday's broadcast will be the 3,909th broadcast of the program, which was first aired from the Salt Lake Tabernacle on July 15, 1929. The broadcast will be followed by a miniconcert, which will include music from the gala concert.
Special recognition will be given to the choir's oldest living member — 97-year-old Margarete Stahl Wilken Hicken. She joined the choir after coming to "Zion" from her hometown of Pforzheim, Germany, at a young age. She accompanied a friend who sang in the choir, which had only about 120 members then. She was asked to sing a simple scale, was told she was an alto and sang with the choir for almost nine years until she was married.
Hicken still tunes in to the program every week.
"Of course 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic' is one of my favorites that they sing," she said. "It gives me little goosebumps when I hear it."
She said the choir has become much more advanced since she was a part of it. The choir now has 360 members. They receive no pay. For this occasion, they will be joined by the Temple Square Orchestra, which has 110 members.
