We learned the morning of the 1st that the tickets had been acquired, and we were so happy. Brian and I met at Carnegie Hall around 6:45 pm. I actually arrived a bit early so had some time to walk around and take pictures.
Carnegie Hall is this beautiful brick building that sits on the corner of 57th St and 7th Ave. There are other brick buildings around it, but also a few skyscrapers made of metal and glass. It stands out against those more modern buildings. They are celebrating its 125th anniversary this year.
While waiting for Brian, I noticed a man with a camera filming the building from across the street. He then came over and did some filming around the building's entrance. He was making a video for the choir's website. You can watch that video here. The video also shows parts of the performance that we attended.
Once Brian arrived, we went inside and picked up our tickets at will call. From there, we took the elevator up to the first tier level where they have a small museum, containing memorabilia from the building itself and past performances. The objects, pictures, and plaques in the room tell the chronological story of the building from its construction onward, as you move around the room clockwise.
We only had about ten minutes until the doors to the auditorium opened, so we didn't get to read and see everything in the room. Instead we just did a quick walk through, snapping pictures of a few things that caught our eye.
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| Tickets to various events, including one for a show starring Julie Andrews and Carol Burnett. |
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| A vinyl album of Judy Garland's Carnegie Hall performance next to a signed 1964 Beatles program. |
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| Toscanini's baton. |
Brian was excited to see some Jazz memorabilia, like this brochure advertising "Horizons in Jazz"--a show with Dizzy Gillespie and George Shearing.
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| Benny Goodman's clarinet, Gene Krupa's drumsticks, Lionel Hampton's mallets, and Leonard Bernstein's baton. |
One entire wall contained album covers of various artists' Carnegie Hall performances.
I didn't know this, but apparently music wasn't/isn't the only thing to take place on the Carnegie Stage. This flier is advertising a movie lecture on lassoing wild animals in Africa by Buffalo Jones that was shown there. There were other programs and fliers for poetry readings, literary lectures, and magic shows.
Even though we just attended a performance here in December, walking into the auditorium was still awe inspiring. It's such a beautiful room...a temple to music if you will. It's an amazing place to visit, and a very special experience to be able to sit within the walls and listen to beautiful music.
We had no idea where we were sitting until we were pointed in the right direction by the ushers. Our seats were on the right side of the auditorium (when facing the stage), only six rows back from the stage. We saw a few other people from our ward there, scattered across the auditorium and in the balconies. One of my scouts and his dad actually had seats right next to us, so that was fun.
The orchestra was arranged on the stage's front half with the choir taking up the balk half. Because we were so close, we could really see any of the choir members, but got a great view of the first chair cello and double bass cello players, along with all the percussionists.
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The program was split into two parts with a 15 minute intermission in between. The first half of the program was directed entirely by Mack Wilberg and contained a lot of songs that I had never heard before. I list the songs in order here, just in case you recognize any of them:
They asked that we refrain from clapping in between pieces during this first section. Each piece flowed into one another, with only short pauses in between. For the most part it was all very quiet, peaceful, flowing music, and was really pretty. There were a few crescendo parts with cymbals, chimes, bells, and drums, but mostly it was just the strings and woodwinds playing accompaniment to the singing.
- Prologue "Old Hundredth"
- Vom Himmel hoch, from Weihnachtslied -- Felix Mendelssohn
- Psalm 148 ("Lasst uns erfreuen") -- Gustav Holst
- Unfold, Ye Portals, from The Redemption -- Charles Gounod
- Cum Sancto Spiritu, from Petit messe solennelle -- Gioacchino Rossini
- Requiem aeternaum, from Requiem -- Mack Wilberg
- Agnus Dei, from Chichester Mass -- Willliam Albright
- Alleluia, from Psalm 150 -- Alberto Ginastera
- Love Diving, All Loves Excelling ("Hyfrydol") -- Rowland Hugh Pritchard arr. Mack Wilberg
- Hymn of Praise ("Old Hundredth") -- Mack Wilberg
- Epilogue "Old Hundredth"
About ten minutes into the concert, when the music was so quiet and beautiful, someone about two or three rows behind us pulled out a bag of what sounded like potato chips and started eating them. It was SO loud! I couldn't believe what was happening. We and everyone around us turned to look, and it was a lady just munching away. The acoustics in that room are amazing, so the sound of her crunching carried very clearly in our section, and I'm sure beyond. Even the cellists on the stage in front of us turned their heads to look at her. I was dumbfounded! She just kept eating and eating, it went on for at least 15 minutes. It was so hard to concentrate on the beautiful music. Nobody asked her to stop and all of the ushers had disappeared. When she started drinking out of a water bottle, which we could hear quite clearly as well, I very seriously thought about going over and politely asking her to stop. But we were in the middle of the row, and didn't want to stand up in the middle of the performance and crawl over everyone to get out, creating another disturbance. Luckily it stopped soon after that. But seriously, eating potato chips very loudly during a musical performance at Carnegie Hall?! I felt really bad for the performers, especially those that could clearly hear her.
During intermission, we were allowed to get up and use the restroom, take pictures of the orchestra and talk to those near the front of the stage. We snapped a few pictures to capture the view from our seats.
Soon the lights dimmed and the second half of the concert began. This was by far my favorite half of the show. The choir and orchestra performed various spiritual and folklore hymns from around the world. The program went as follows:
- Glory! -- Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov
- ¡Ah, el novio no quere dinero! -- Sephardic Wedding Song arr. Mack Wilberg
- Betelehemu -- Nigerian Carol Via Olatunji &Wendell Whalum arr. Barrington Brooks
- Pilgrim Song -- American Folk Hymn arr. Ryan Murphy conducted by Ryan Murphy
- Gospel Train - Old Time Religion, from Spirituals for Strings with Alex Boye, Soloist -- African-American Spiritual arr. Moses Hogan
- I'm Runnin' On with Alex Boye, Soloist -- African-America Spiritual arr. Mack Wilberg
- Come, Come, Ye Saints -- LDS Hymn arr. Mack Wilberg
- Battle Hymn of the Republic -- William Steffe arr. Peter J. Wilhousky
We are glad that we have a Father to trust.I've included the YouTube video of it below, because it was such a fun song. You can find most of the other songs on YouTube as well.
Where was Jesus born?
Bethlehem, the city of wonder.
Praise, praise, praise be to Him.
We thank Thee, we thank Thee, we thank Thee for this day,
Gracious Father.
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Of course the choir and orchestra received a standing ovation. Their first encore was "Climb Every Mountain" from the Sound of Music. It was so cool, and I loved that one as well. That song earned them another standing ovation and so they gave us another encore of "My Land is Your Land" directed by special guest Chuck Schumer (senior U.S. Senator from NY). It was a fun little number. I don't think Mr. Schumer knew what he was doing conducting, but he happily waved the baton through the entire song.
I don't remember if it was right after the intermission or before the last two hymns, but Lloyd D. Newell, the announcer for Music and the Spoken Word, came out on stage and talked a little bit about the choir's history. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir was started when a group of Saints belonging to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints sang at a conference in the Salt Lake Valley on August 22, 1847. This occurred only 29 days after the first Saints arrived in the Salt Lake. The choir has grown from that first small group of pioneers to its current group of 360 volunteer-members that perform across the U.S. and around the world. You can learn more about the choir by visiting this link.
We had an amazing time, and it was kind of surreal to get to see Motab perform at Carnegie Hall. As we were exiting the auditorium, the choir sang "God Be with You Till We Meet Again" a cappella style. We stopped towards the back of the room to get a picture of the choir on the stage.
The official picture they took looks a lot better than ours.
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Outside on the street, we passed by a very bald and tattooed street musician playing "Come, Come Ye Saints" on a saxophone. That was great and very surreal...we never thought we would hear a familiar hymn on the streets of NYC.
Later, I was reading some posts on the choir's blog, and found a quote by J.S. Bach that reads: “The final aim and reason of all music is nothing other than the glorification of God and the refreshment of the spirit.” I just love that. Music is such a wonderful gift, of which I am very grateful. The concert was just beautiful and so uplifting, and perfectly fulfilled that quote. I'm so grateful to be member of the LDS Church, and as such was very proud that night as we listened to our choir spread joy, love, and their testimonies through music.
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