CHRISTMAS WITH THE TABERNACLE CHOIR CONCERT
There were plenty of notable moments of impressive musicianship in the Christmas with The Tabernacle Choir concert at the conference center of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The choir, with music director Mack Wilberg at the helm, did full justice to its eminent reputation. One example was its performance of For Unto Us a Child is Born from Handel’s Messiah. The music is so familiar that sometimes performances point toward cliché, but not here. With the choir, the Gabriel Trumpet Ensemble and the Orchestra at Temple Square joining forces, the result produced a powerful tonic about universal spirituality superseding the vile, petty and contentious vibes that bedevil our lives.
Just as potent a spiritual tonic was legendary organist Richart Elliott’s performance of his arrangement of the famous Christmas carol of LDS origin: Far, Far Away on Judea’s Plains by John Menzies Macfarlane, a 19th century Scottish-born convert to the church. Joined by timpanist Danny Soulier and bass drum player Matt Nickle, Elliott took us on a cosmological journey venturing into musical quotations from the Glory to God chorus in the Nativity section of Handel’s Messiah to the eternally familiar sunrise opening (the Sonnenaufgang) of Richard Strauss’ tone poem Thus Spake Zarathustra.
The music segued into an account of the Apollo 8 ‘Christmas Mission’ which sent the first astronauts to orbit the moon and led to the iconic Earthrise photograph. This was a serendipitous chapter in the concert for how the creative forces for this section came together. Setting up the traditional Christmas Eve ending, it became a prominent opportunity for the special artists Stephanie J. Block, a Tony Award winning Broadway star, and her husband, Sebastian Arcelus, an Uruguay native with an extensive Broadway and network television portfolio who also is an avid astronomy buff and amateur historian about the American space exploration program.
It was the concert’s Latin Christmas section that provided some of the finest and most intriguing moments of the evening, thanks to artistic relationships forged during a choir tour in South America, which included stops this past August in Argentina. The section featured violinist Leandro Curaba and composer and performer Julián Mansilla, who is preserving the legacy of the bandoneón, a unique version of a concertina, and its central role in the Argentinian tango. Exquisite performances of two folk Spanish carols set the tone with distinct Argentinian and indigenous musical effects and textures: Vamos, ya Pastores (Let’s Go Now, Shepherds) from the Los Pastores folk play, and El Nacimiento (The Birth) from Ariel Ramírez’s Navidad Nuestra, which the composer wrote in 1964 after Vatican II approved the use of local languages in the Mass.
The emotionally enriched apex of the evening came in the performance of Adios, Nonino (Farewell, Grandfather), by Astor Piazzolla in a splendid arrangement by Mansilla. Poignant and melancholic, this is among Piazzolla’s greatest pieces. He wrote this in 1959, while on tour in Central America, after receiving the news of his father’s tragic death in a bicycle accident. Piazzolla based the musical tribute to his father on a previous tango he had composed, but extended the melodic structure for the more recent work. Adios, Nonino and its provenance are integral in the cultural bond that girds the diaspora for Argentinians around the world.
It was an utmost sensitive performance — featuring Mansilla, Curaba, Arcelus, the choir and orchestra — that called upon us to remember our own lost loved ones as we celebrate another holiday season. In an interview with The Utah Review, Mansilla and Curaba talked about preserving the folk legacy as well as the body of music by one of Argentina’s greatest musical figures. Although it has been more than 30 years since Piazzolla died, younger generations have shared a fresh appreciation for the composer’s undeniably revolutionary resurrection of a once-dying genre. Music’s historical resonance comes through the risks composers are willing to take and the decision to place this Piazzolla gem on this Christmas concert was genius.
Rest assured, the concert was filmed and, following tradition, will be broadcast by BYUtv and PBS for the 2026 holiday season.
ECCLES ORGAN FESTIVAL: BRASS AND ORGAN CHRISTMAS CONCERT PROGRAM
The Eccles Organ Festival’s Brass and Organ Christmas Concert was a spectacular exploration of the atmospherics of the sound palette in The Cathedral of the Madeleine. Featuring organists Gabriele Terrone and Julian Petrallia and members of the Utah Symphony’s brass sections as well as University of Utah and Brigham Young University and Utah Symphony principal percussionist Keith Carrick, the concert was impressive in 65 minutes of offerings including music by Michael Praetorius, Eugène Gigout and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, as well as traditional carols from France, Catalan and elsewhere.
A riveting opener, Teronne’s arrangement of Gigout’s Grand Chœur Dialogué lived up to the creative promise of its title, reminding us of how well the cathedral’s acoustics handle glorious antiphonal effects. It’s based on a simple melody of just four bars and the composer works his way through various key centers, but in the hands of Gigout, one of France’s greatest organists in history, the music ideally calls upon us to connect ourselves to the spiritual promise of the holiday season.
Photo Credit: Charles Vaccaro @xutahphotographyx at Instagram.
Led by Austin McWilliams, Utah Symphony’s chorus director and opera assistant conductor, the musical forces raised us to festive perfection in performances of selections from Praetorius, the late Renaissance Era German master, including two pieces from the massive Terpsichore compilation of dances, in arrangements by Jeff Luke, as well as the composer’s In dulci Jubilo à 2 and In dulci Jubilo à 20 (the latter in an arrangement by Terrone). Two smaller brass choirs stayed while a third brass choir performed in the organ loft. This was a remarkable natural surround-sound effect.
Indicative of a composer who was among the most definitive for the Christmas season, Praetorius’s music is encyclopaedic in its origins and scope. It was a treat to hear selections from the composer’s rare excursions into the secular, with Terpsichore. Equally appreciated was Terrone’s arrangement of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Polonaise from the Christmas Eve Suite, which captured the original’s fusion of the stately Polish dance of tis title with the Russia-Eastern sonic textures.
The closing selection was as riveting emotionally as the opener, with Lily Graham, cantor of the cathedral, leading the audience in the traditional Veni, Veni, Emmanuel. Terrone’s arrangement highlighting all of the concert’s musical forces accentuates the song’s haunting ancient modal beauty. The music moves from the austere darkness in the Advent season to its lifting call for us to rejoice. The transition in Terrone’s arrangement encapsulates the subtle liturgical shift, foreshadowing the brilliance of the Christmas season that awaits.
As usual, the cathedral was packed and for good reason. Now in its 32nd season, the Eccles Organ Festival is one of Salt Lake City’s most distinguished musical series. The series resumes in the new year, with an organ recital by Richard Fitzgerald, director of music at Saint Joseph Cathedral in Columbus, Ohio. His program will feature works by Louis-Nicolas Clérambault, Johann Sebastian Bach and some of his own compositions.
For more information, the Eccles Organ Festival website.
thank you for the write up of the Mormon Conf. Center performance. I was blown away and all the Latin American parts were wonderful and you emphasized that. Bravo. It was so good to go south and recognize the culture and variety we rarely see. Thank you for the emphasis.