Mormon Tabernacle Choir director to lead concert Jan. 24

Furman University will present a concert to close its annual Church Music Conference Friday, Jan. 24 at 7:30 p.m. at First Baptist Church of Greenville.

“A Festival of Sacred Choral Music” is free and open to the public, and features guest conductor Mack Wilberg, Music Director and Conductor of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Choirs performing in the concert include the Furman Singers, Furman Chamber Choir, and the Sanctuary Choir of First Baptist Church of Greenville. Furman Professor of Organ Charles Tompkins will accompany, together with a brass ensemble and percussion.

The concert presents the premiere of Wilberg’s “O Worship the King, All-Glorious Above,” commissioned for the 2014 Furman University Church Music Conference.

Dr. Wilberg, the 2014 Church Music Conference’s featured clinician, was appointed music director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in 2008, having served as associate music director of the Choir since 1999. Wilberg is responsible for all musical and creative aspects of the Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square in rehearsals, concerts, tours, and recordings, as well as the weekly broadcast of Music and the Spoken Word.

Wilberg is a former professor of music at Brigham Young University and is active as a composer, arranger, guest conductor, and clinician throughout the United States and abroad. His compositions and arrangements, currently published exclusively by Oxford University Press, are performed and recorded by choral organizations throughout the world. For further background on Wilberg, go to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir website.

The “Festival of Sacred Choral Music” concert is the capstone event of the Furman University Church Music Conference which meets on the Furman campus Thursday, Jan. 23 and Friday, Jan. 24. Established in 1971 and sponsored by a grant from the Thomson Foundation, the Furman Church Music Conference features nationally and internationally known musicians and clergy who present lectures related to the study and practice of church music.

During the conference, Wilberg will present sessions in Harper Hall of the Herring Music Pavilion at Furman. These sessions will include rehearsals of repertory to be performed in the Jan. 24 conference, as well as lectures and discussions on choral arranging, effective rehearsal techniques for choirs, and the history of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

For more information about the Jan. 24 concert and the Church Music Conference, contact the Furman University Music Department at 864-294-2086, or email FurmanMusic@furman.edu, or visit the Music Department’s website at www.furman.edu/music.