Once upon a time I was a choir director. Before getting caught up in all of this technology stuff I taught chorus to middle schoolers during the week, and directed music at a fairly large church on the weekends. It was what I trained to do as an undergrad, and I was having a blast doing it. As my career evolved, I needed weekends back, so I gave up choir directing. I continued singing with the Greenville Chorale, and that kept me musically active, but one of my retirement goals was to get back into choir directing.
It’s now been ten years since I’ve had a church choir. I did a brief interim at Fourth Presbyterian in 2005-06, but that’s hardly long enough to count. When I was a choir director I would regularly attend the Furman Church Music Conference, held on campus each January. I decided that a step toward my goal would be to attend the conference this year.
This year the clinician would be none other than Mack Wilberg, director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Wilberg had spoken at the conference before, twelve years ago in 2002 when he was the associate director. Oddly enough, that was the last conference I attended. The session titles for this year were the same as that 2002 conference, and I almost hesitated – but now I’m glad I attended.
Read More “Singing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir (sort of)” »