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SALT LAKE CITY — On Saturday, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints heard music from children and missionaries in two choirs pulled together specifically for the conference sessions.
Music is a large part of the church's biannual general conference — there are over 1,200 people involved in the music for the five sessions, representing 19,000 hours of service from choir directors, choir members and others. It's no small feat.
Those numbers were calculated by Katie Bastian, a music manager who works in the church's Priesthood and Family Department.
Ahead of conference, she said she was really excited to hear the children's choir sing "Gethsemane," a well-known children's song in the church that was recently added to the church's new hymn book. The children in the choir are between 8 and 13.
"The arrangement is beautiful, and they just sing it with all their hearts," she said.
She said this year was the first time the church had missionaries apply to join the choir before entering the Missionary Training Center. The missionary choir includes not just missionaries in the MTC but local service missionaries of all ages. Bastian said the expansion to include service missionaries began two years ago.
"It's a little more complex than just having (the) MTC participate, but it is so worth it," she said.
Build-your-own choirs
She said organizers rotate who is invited to provide a choir for general conference. BYU, BYU-Idaho, or institute choirs are typically invited to provide a choir in the April conferences. October conferences typically have what she called build-your-own choirs — members are invited to join a choir based on their location, or they build a choir that is multicultural or made up of families or children.
Her department gives its plans for the unique choirs to the church's First Presidency, which makes the ultimate decision. Bastian said the music for general conference is directed by the First Presidency.
Choirs begin practicing about six or seven weeks before conference, with practices about once a week. She said this is "just barely enough time for them to learn all the music, memorize it, prepare spiritually and be ready to go."
Of the three people in the music manager position, Bastian is the one who focuses on music needs at church headquarters, including general conference choirs. She said the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square could probably provide music for every session, but the build-your-own choirs allow people with different musical backgrounds to have the opportunity.
"This experience provides a chance for so many people to be representatives of the Savior in his worldwide church," she said.
It's not just about providing music that impacts church members around the world but providing an individual experience to the members of the choir.
"There's just something really extraordinary about sitting in those seats behind our prophets and apostles, all of our leaders, as they are giving their messages to the world," she said.
She has her own experience singing during conference; Bastian said her first time on the stage was with a Logan institute choir, and she has been a member of the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square for the last 15 years.
Pulling the program together
Bastian said the church has a list of qualified, interested choir directors to choose from, and she has felt a lot of direction from the Holy Spirit about who needs to direct the choir. After it's over, she said it is fun to see why that director was important.
Once they have the choirs chosen and directors for the choir, the directors propose songs, and the program is arranged to ensure the songs have varied tones and are unique.
When the songs are all arranged, part of Bastian's job is to help submit a song proposal to the First Presidency.
She said with a few exceptions, there is no coordination between messages in conference and the songs the choirs sing — but there are often connections.
"That's just another testimony to me of … the Spirit directing all of this work," she said.
The new hymns are a big focus when choosing songs right now to help members become familiar. Bastian said eight of the recently released hymns are featured by choirs in this weekend's general conference.
Choir members
Picking choir members for the build-your-own choirs is another significant task. For choirs that are localized, local church leaders have been asked for recommendations, and other times there is an application process through the church's casting website, Bastian said.
For this October's conference, choir members were picked through applications.
Bastian said experience in other choirs is not always necessary to be invited to sing in one of the build-your-own choirs, but the church does look for musical skill and a strong desire to be part of a choir.
But she said there are many other logistics to consider when pulling together a choir, including choral balance and trying to involve families when multiple family members apply. She compares it to a "massive jigsaw puzzle." The choir directors have more recently begun to be involved in selecting the members for the choir, and Bastian said she thinks that is improving the quality of the music.
"Most importantly, we pray and we trust that the spirit guides those decisions," she said.
The choir practices begin with people who have never met, and she said at the end, the group has become a family.
"It's not always what you would call fun, but going through that difficult process as a group. it creates a special bond that they never forget," Bastian said.
