Mormon Tabernacle Choir visits St. Louis, Nauvoo

NAUVOO, Ill. — With former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft conducting an encore number to conclude their concert in St. Louis Saturday evening, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square took to the road Sunday to visit Nauvoo, Ill.

The audience in Scottrade Center in St. Louis was surprised when Ashcroft, who is also a former governor and U.S. senator from Missouri, was introduced as guest conductor. After Mack Wilberg, music director of the Tabernacle Choir, handed over his baton, Ashcroft stepped onto the conductor's podium. Right on cue, the orchestra began playing "This Land Is Your Land." The temporary conductor brought in the choir, giving a rousing conclusion to the concert program.

After the concert, Ashcroft told the Deseret News, "It was a privilege beyond explanation and an inspiration beyond description to be involved in this great choir."

He said that he wished everybody in America could have heard the concert.

On Sunday morning the choir and orchestra traveled to Nauvoo, a city developed by early Latter-day Saints that served as Church headquarters from the spring of 1839 until the exodus west began in 1846. The Latter-day Saints who had lived in Nauvoo became the pioneers who arrived in what is now Utah in July of 1847.

Members of the choir, orchestra and guests attended sacrament meeting in the Nauvoo Illinois Stake center at noon and then spent a few hours visiting some of the city's historic sites. They departed in the evening for Des Moines, Iowa, where a concert is scheduled for Monday evening.