Harmonious milestone for Tabernacle Choir

With nods from President Bush and LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley, along with conductors and organists past and present, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir celebrated and performed its 4,000th consecutive broadcast on Sunday.

Several thousand people gathered in the Conference Center downtown for a 30-minute video look at the choir's past, narrated by longtime CBS newsman Charles Osgood. Television audiences throughout the Intermountain West also viewed the program Sunday on a televised tape delay.

Now in its 77th year, "Music and the Spoken Word" is the longest continuous program in broadcast history, heard every Sunday from "the crossroads of the West," and periodically, from other venues worldwide when the 360-voice choir is on tour.

The choir's first performance on July 15, 1929, featured narration by Richard L. Evans, then just 24, who went on to become the first voice of the program, with "simple eloquence, common sense and uncommon wisdom," Osgood said.

Lloyd Newell now provides narration for the program as director Craig Jessop leads the choir, with assistance from composer and arranger Mack Wilberg.

The weekly broadcast followed the video segment, interspersed with video clip narration segments, including one by Bush, who recalled the choir has performed for presidents going back to William Howard Taft. "You performed at six presidential inaugurals, including my own," he said, noting President Ronald Reagan had dubbed the group "America's choir."

The president honored the choir in 2003 with the nation's highest award for artistic achievement, the National Medal for the Arts. "You have brought music and inspiration to generations of Americans, and I wish you continued success in the future," he said.

President Hinckley, who has served as the LDS Church's priesthood adviser to the choir since 1971, told the broadcast audience there is "nothing to equal it in all the history of network broadcasting.

"This longevity is well-deserved because of the high quality of the choir's performances. With each passing year, 'Music and the Spoken Word' has grown ever better. May all that has occurred in the past be but prelude to an even greater future."

Following the choir's history-making broadcast, President Hinckley joined U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and others in addressing the musicians and those assembled in the Conference Center, praising all those who have contributed to the program's success through the years.

He noted that most of those involved, including the choir members and the Orchestra at Temple Square, are volunteers who "give of their time in a consecrated, beautiful and wonderful manner, and in doing so, bring great credit to the church, the state of Utah and this great nation."