Natalie Cole performs with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir during their 2009 Christmas concert. Different guest performers are invited each year.__Angela Lansbury, star of stage and screen, sings with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir during the choir's annual Christmas concert in 2001.__Walter Cronkite conducts the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square during the Christmas concert Dec. 13, 2002, at the Conference Center. Cronkite suggested that the concerts should be nationally broadcast.
Brian Nicholson, Deseret Morning News
SALT LAKE CITY — When former CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite participated in a Christmas concert with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in 2002, he was impressed with the huge 21,000 seat LDS Conference Center. Scott Barrick, general manager of the choir, said that Cronkite commented that "being in the Conference Center was a thrill in a thrill-filled life."
Cronkite had come to Salt Lake City to narrate a 20-minute story about Christmas in World War I during the Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert.
Every year Cronkite hosted the Vienna New Year's Concert featuring the Vienna Philharmonic. Those concerts were broadcast on PBS.
He spoke to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir music director at the time, Craig D. Jessop, and told him, "Craig, you should own Christmas like Vienna does New Year's."
Cronkite is not the only person who has been smitten with the Conference Center and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's Christmas music. Photo historian Ron Fox has gathered photographs of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in their full Christmas concert glory.
"The choir has always done Christmas concerts," Barrick said. "Having a guest was not a new concept, but (with the 2000 opening of the Conference Center) it became possible to take these guest artists and do a show in a very different way. There is nothing like the Conference Center for size and scope."
Barrick said that the late LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley wanted the Conference Center to be used not only for LDS Church conferences, but also for large productions in the community.
For 11 years, the Mormon Tabernacle Christmas concerts have done just that, bringing world-class talent to the Conference Center:
2000: Singer Gladys Knight and actress Roma Downey
2001: Actress Angela Lansbury
2002: Walter Cronkite
2003: Singers Frederica von Stade and Bryn Terfel
2004: Broadway singer Audra McDonald and actor Peter Graves
2005: Opera singer Renee Fleming and actress Claire Bloom
2006: Norwegian singer Sissel
2007: British a cappella group the King's Singers
2008: Broadway singer Brian Stokes Mitchell and actor Edward Herrmann
2009: Singer Natalie Cole and historian David McCullough
- KSL-TV welcomes 2 new anchors, new format
- Utah woman adopted as baby faces deportation...
- Identities released in St. George fatal plane...
- Final movement: Retiring violinist reflects...
- Holiday campers surprised by canyon snowfall
- Dangerous silence: Why you need to talk to...
- Weekend rescuers save horse in basement,...
- Personal investments from Primary hospital...
- Is this dress too short? Tooele teen...
58 - Dangerous silence: Why you need to talk...
27 - Studies try to find why poorer people...
26 - Sarah Palin catches flak over her Orrin...
24 - Liljenquist pushing to make name for...
21 - Several Utah high schools moving to...
13 - KSL-TV welcomes 2 new anchors, new format
10 - Senate rejects GOP, Democrat plans on...
7






DeseretNews.com encourages a civil dialogue among its readers. We welcome your thoughtful comments.
— About comments