An ‘army’ of singers delivers Mormon Tabernacle sound

Brigham Young arrived in this region in 1846 and set up winter camp with nearly 3,000 of his followers.

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, which performs Tuesday at the Holland Performing Arts Center, won’t bring nearly as many Mormons into Omaha. Nevertheless, this legendary ensemble will bring an enormous vocal and instrumental force to town.

Mack Wilberg, the choir’s music director, will lead a mixed chorus of 325 singers and an orchestra of 63 musicians. They will arrive in 11 chartered buses.

“It’s like moving an army,” said Wilberg, who was on the phone from the chorus’s headquarters in Salt Lake City.

Size has long been one of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s great strengths.

It gives the chorus its rich and luxurious sound. And it allows the group to perform the seemingly impossible.

“We can get eight separate subgroups in the chorus all singing at once,” Wilberg said.

One of the oldest ensembles in the world, the choir was formed in 1847, just weeks after the Mormons arrived in Utah.

“Music was central to the pioneers,” Wilberg said. “Each group traveled with at least one person who could repair wagon wheels and one person who could sing or play fiddle.”

The group gave its first weekly radio broadcast in 1929. That show, “Music and the Spoken Word,” turns 80 next month. It’s now the world’s longest continuing broadcast.

Other notable accomplishments include singing for 10 U.S. presidents — starting with William Howard Taft — and making more than 300 recordings since 1910.

Tuesday’s performance is part of a seven-city Midwestern tour. The concert will be the choir’s first ever in Omaha.

“Considering the church’s history in Omaha, it’s going to seem like a homecoming,” Wilberg said.

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