Utah pianist, cellist working together to make beautiful music

After the symphony premiered with the SUU orchestra in February 2006, Xun took it to China, where it was performed by the Hunan Symphony. He also guest-conducted it with the Ukraine Symphony.

It's exciting to get international play, the composers say. In fact, the symphony was so well received in China that they are now doing a CD, recorded by the China Philharmonic Symphony. "It will be called 'American Journey,' says McDonald, "and it will have the Spanish Trail Symphony, and then a piece called 'Tender Mercies' from our African symphony, and then some songs like 'Homeward Bound,' 'Come, Come Ye Saints' and 'If You Could Hie to Kolob.' We snuck in a few extra of our favorites."

The recording of the CD was an amazing thing, the men say, that happened in a rather unexpected way. "The Philharmonic was on tour with the Olympic flame," explains McDonald, "but all the political unrest, the demonstrations about Tibet came up, and the orchestra was sent home. Xun just happened to be there, and he called to say they had a small window and they could do it now. Steve and I had planned to fly over, but it came up so quickly that we couldn't do that. But we sent the music over to Xun and he did it."

What is also interesting, they say, is that even though Xun thinks the country would benefit from religious music, the government does not. "In fact, they have a ban forbidding the major orchestras from playing religious music. But even though we have some hymn arrangements, because the focus was Americana, we got in under the wire. There is a lot of interest in the American West in China."

Although the "American Journey" CD will be released only in China, McDonald and Nelson were able to put some of the pieces recorded by the China Philharmonic on CDs that they have both recently released locally.

On Nelson's "Tender Mercies," the title tract is from the "Africa," and he uses "Homeward Bound" and "Come, Come Ye Saints" as well. Other songs are favorite hymns, folk songs and even movie music and feature guests artists such as pianists Paul Cardall and Jon Schmidt and guitarist Ryan Tilby, as well as McDonald.

It's very much in the spirit of "Sacred Cello," his first CD, Nelson says, "but there are also a few elements of surprise that show the fun side of the cello. But each song has a special meaning to me."