Orchestra at Temple Square

The Orchestra at Temple Square ( German Orchestra at Temple Square ) is the orchestra of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Salt Lake City and consists of 110 volunteer members.

History

The orchestra was founded in 1999 under the direction of Gordon B. Hinckley, the then President of the Church as part of a creative initiative to strengthen and expand the possible applications of the Church's own music organizations. With its establishment, it fulfilled a longstanding dream of church government according to its own permanent orchestra, on the one hand to increase the quality of the performances of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the other to instrumentalists of the church volunteer to involve in the same way in music projects such as the choir members. While recording contracts were paid in the first years of the orchestra, the orchestra with the creation of his own record labels of the Tabernacle Choir has been completely transformed into a volunteer organization. Nevertheless, many members of the orchestra are professional musicians, they get ever since for their participation in the Orchestra at Temple Square no fee.

How the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Orchestra at Temple Square also his homestead in the Salt Lake Tabernacle on Temple Square in Salt Lake City. During the renovation work in the tabernacle from 2005 to 2007 gave way for both rehearsals and performances made ​​in the neighboring LDS Conference Center.

The orchestra was originally conducted by Barlow Bradford, the former deputy director of the Tabernacle Choir and former creative director of the Utah Chamber Artists. Under his leadership, the orchestra has become one vielbeachtetem Symphony Orchestra. However, Bradford resigned his post shortly after the Winter Olympic Games in 2002 on surprising. The orchestra led the Tabernacle Choir director Craig Jessop until his abrupt departure also on 4 March 2008 on, which provided for a further development in the role as an accompanying orchestra of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Temple Square Chorales.

Repertoire and performances

The orchestra performs several times a year, both at home and on their own touring, large symphonic works under the leadership of the Ukrainian conductor, violinist and concertmaster of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra Igor Gruppman on.

It occurs regularly in the radio and television broadcasts of Music and the Spoken Word on the weekly radio show of the Tabernacle Choir, as well as the much-publicized Christmas events and recording projects of the choir. The last recordings of the choir own label celebrated great successes and appeared at high positions in the Billboard classical and Billboard Classical Crossover charts. In addition, the Orchestra Temple Square Chorale accompanied to his semi-annual concerts and designed many stage productions of church music.