Behind the scenes with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir

SALT LAKE CITY — At 9:30 sharp on Sunday morning, the cue is given and soft music caresses the Tabernacle: \"Gently raise the sacred strain, for the Sabbath's come again, that man may rest, that man may rest.\"

For the next half-hour, the Tabernacle will be filled with the glorious sounds of \"Music and the Spoken Word.\" And not only this building, but through the magic of radio, television and cable, the sounds will go out to fill the homes and buildings and centers served by about 2,000 stations around the country.

It has been that way, week in and week out, for 82 years now, the longest-running, continuous broadcast in the country.

Today's broadcasts, of course, are much different from those in 1929, initiated by LDS Church President Heber J. Grant. On July 15, as the famous story goes, KZN radio, forerunner of KSL and a stepchild of the Deseret News, temporarily went off the air so that its only microphone could be transported to the Tabernacle, where a technician perched atop a 15-foot ladder could hold it for the 30-minute musical program.

Nationwide radio had only been operating for a few years, but KZN immediately began lobbying for a coast-to-coast broadcast. Thirty radio stations received the first NBC transmission. By the next year, quality of broadcasting had improved to the point that the New York Telegram noted: \"Somewhere in the world there may be more than one brilliant choral organization other than the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but there is no broadcasting in America today to equal the one that comes from the air over the National Broadcasting System.\"

The program grew and changed as technology grew and changed, staying at the forefront all along the way. Eventually, the CBS radio and television network became the national partner.

Some things have not changed: the heartfelt messages, the musical expressions of faith — and the fact that it is still a live broadcast, or, at least, has come full-circle back to a live broadcast.

\"Live is almost a lost art,\" producer Edward J. Payne says. \"No one does a very complex show of music and art live anymore. They want several takes. They want to fine-tune the audio.\" He's had colleagues who can't believe he even tries a live program. \"And then they see our broadcast, and really can't believe that it is live.\"