Mormon Tabernacle Choir's importance is in its missionary work

SALT LAKE CITY — The Mormon Tabernacle Choir's importance is not in its repertoire, its chart-topping hits or the proliferation of its televised Christmas concerts, but rather in its purpose as a missionary organization, said Heidi S. Swinton, who chronicled the choir in a 2004 PBS documentary and accompanying book "America's Choir."

"If we step back a pace and see the people who stand at concerts all over the country and world and stamp their feet and cheer, as if they were participating in some incredible rock concert, it's amazing to note that this is the Mormon Tabernacle Choir," she said.

Swinton delivered a lecture Friday at the LDS Church History Museum for its "Evenings at the Museum" series.

"Every time the Tabernacle Choir sings 'Come, Come, Ye Saints,' there is a hush and a stillness that comes over the congregation," Swinton said, adding that the choir takes to the world "the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. They sing that message with the power of the Spirit in a way that reaches out into the hearts of those that are listening, and it brings them to an understanding that Jesus Christ lives."

Swinton, whose biography of church President Thomas S. Monson, "To the Rescue," has just been published, retold an incident from his life pertaining to the choir.

When President Monson was presiding over a mission in Canada, a convert to the church related to him that LDS missionaries had approached his family, who had been looking for a church. The family planned one Sunday to attend an LDS meeting. That morning, the children and the mother were ready to go, but the father was not in the mood for it and refused to join them. He responded to their cajoling with anger.

While the family was at the church meeting, the father tried to read the newspaper but could not get interested in it. He went into his daughter's bedroom and turned on her radio to hear a newscast. Instead, he heard the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's weekly nationwide radio program, with announcer Richard L. Evans giving a message about changing one's life for the better.

The man was overwhelmed and began to pray, expressing his sorrow for how he had acted.

When the family returned home, they were surprised to see his change in mood. He explained what had happened.

The daughter replied, "Well, Dad, that's a pretty good story if it were true." She said her radio and nonfunctional for two weeks. When he disputed that, she took him into her room. He turned on the radio and heard nothing.

"He realized he'd been part of a miracle, a miracle that had come through the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's broadcast through the message that they share with the world." Swinton said.

In addition to Swinton's lecture, the museum program included a performance by a 16-voice choir consisting of former Tabernacle Choir members under the direction of Jane Ripplinger Fjeldsted. Also performing together were harpist Tamara Oswald and Jeannine Goeckeritz, two principal musicians with the Orchestra at Temple Square, which accompanies the choir in its concerts and recordings.

e-mail: rscott@desnews.com