Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square sings praises of new, digitally friendly logo
The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square provides music for the Saturday, Oct. 5, 2019, sessions of the 189th Semiannual General Conference.
The new, digitally friendly logo unveiled April 23, 2020, for The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. It will be the sixth logo since 1903.
For the sixth time in its history, the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square has introduced a new, more modern and digitally focused logo. The new logo changes the choir to a more modern look without losing the history of the famous tabernacle organ pipes.
For more than a year, researchers from inside and outside The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have been designing and incorporating the history of the choir into the new look.
“It was designed with a digital first idea,” said Ron Jarrett, president of the choir. “It is more digital, but hanging on to the past. We are able to animate the new logo so it can be use in video — such as showing the pipes descending.”
Mack Wilberg, choir director, noted the significance of the number of pipes — seven — as part of a biblical symbolism meaning whole or complete.
“It is the unification of sound,” Wilberg said. “It allows people to add their own feeling to it. The new digital efforts bring hope, joy and comfort. It has the power to touch people in digital space.”
The new logo will be added to the choir’s digital and social media platforms immediately and also will be an animated ending to the weekly “Music and the Spoken Word” broadcasts, now in its 90th year.
The weekly broadcast is now in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French. Jarrett said choir officials are trying to expand to more languages in the near future.
Next week the choir will release a new CD, with the updated logo appearing on that packaging, according to Wilberg.
The 360-voice choir has not been able to rehearse during the COVID-19 outbreak and getting together might still be a ways off. However, Wilberg did say auditions for the choir will begin in July and go through November with a new class of choir members beginning in January.
It is still unknown if the choir will tour this summer because of the worldwide pandemic. “There are possible other ideas in the way we tour,” Jarrett said.
With the digital first efforts, listeners will be able to put together their own play lists, Wilberg said.
When asked how he felt about not being at April’s General Conference, Wilberg said, “It was different, and I personally missed being there.”
On Oct. 5, after more than 100 years, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir has changed its name to The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. The name modification, which drops the long-standing word “Mormon,” follows an August 2018 statement by President Russell M. Nelson requesting the the discontinuance of the use of “Mormon” and the use of the full name of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the choir’s sponsoring organization.
At the name change announcement, Jarrett said, “We have always been a forward-looking people, and we are focused on what is not changing: the world-class musicianship, the inspiring arrangements and programming, and our weekly ‘Music and the Spoken Word’ broadcast, continuing a tradition begun 90 years ago.”