Moving choir takes years of planning
E-mail story
It's easy. Send a link to the story you were just reading to a friend. Just fill out the form on this page and we'll send it along.
Your name and e-mail address are transmitted to the recipient. Otherwise, it is considered private information; see Privacy policy.
While on tour June 21-July 3, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir moved audiences.
Barry Anderson moved the choir.
It was no small task. As the choir's administrative manager and controller, he was in charge of just about everything that didn't involve music specifically. Even then, he was responsible to seeing to it that everything required to stage nine concerts in seven cities — from orchestral instruments, singers' wardrobes, risers, lighting and sound equipment, and even an organ (plus one to spare) — arrived and got set up on time.
Those responsibilities came on top of working out details to transport nearly 600 people, including 308 of the choir's 360 singers, 62 members of the Orchestra at Temple Square, 120 paying guests (mostly spouses or other family members affiliated with the choir and orchestra), 88 volunteers, and members of the choir staff and Church Audio Visual Department crew. And, of course, all those people had to be accommodated in hotels and fed three meals a day.
The transportation and hotel portions of the tour, according to Brother Anderson, were among the least of his worries — he turned most of those details over to Dave Barnes, manager of Church Travel Services, and his team.
While he had a team of helpers, including fellow members of the choir's staff and volunteers, Brother Anderson was the "go-to-man" of the tour.
"Barry Anderson was the backbone of the tour," said Mac Christensen, president of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. "He started working on this tour early in 2005. I can't begin to list all the details he took care of."
Brother Anderson didn't spend any time on concert stages, but he could have qualified as a one-man act in a juggling show. Try this mental exercise: coordinate chartering three planes and 11 buses, and lining up concert venues with hotel rooms on dates that are available to each. And then try to line up days that venues are available that will allow the choir to travel from one city to the next on a "reasonable" schedule and along a route that won't require too much backtracking. On top of that, recognize that you can't expect members of the choir and orchestra to do nothing but travel and perform — they will need a little time for rest and recreation during the 13-day tour—you need to work out details so they will have at least a few hours in each concert city to see some of the sights.
The choir and orchestra performed four concerts within 24 hours at the start of the tour, two each in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and Chautauqua Institution near Buffalo, N.Y. Except for the concerts in Toronto, which were held in Roy Thomson Hall, and Chautauqua the choir took along its own organ, risers, lighting and sound equipment. Four semi-trailer trucks and four other large trucks were required to haul the equipment and luggage. Volunteers who had or who still have careers as drivers drove the trucks.
One of the key people assisting Brother Anderson was Alex Morris, a volunteer who oversaw just about everything that had to do with physically preparing the concert stages and then dismantling everything after each concert and moving on to the next venue. Most of the crew that worked with Brother Morris were volunteers.
"I can't say enough about these volunteers," Brother Anderson said near the end of the tour. "Nearly everyone is a volunteer — the choir and orchestra, and these crews that set everything up, the truck drivers. Most of these people are taking two weeks of their vacation time to come on this tour.
"They work hard, the musicians and the crews. They're out in the heat and humidity. The behind-the-scenes crews do heavy, physical work. They're vital to a tour like this.
"A mission of the choir is to sing, and sing to as many people as we can. Everybody works together."
E-mail to: gerry@desnews.com
