Christmas With The Tabernacle Choir

Famed actress and singer Lea Salonga takes us behind the scenes of Christmas with The Tabernacle Choir. Lea knew that she was in for something extraordinary when she joined the Tabernacle Choir for their Christmas special. In this video she describes her experience and how it transcended her expectations.

The Christmas poem “Minuit, chrétiens,” written by a French merchant Placide Cappeau, was set to music by famed French composer Adolphe Adam. It was first performed at a midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, 1847. Watch Lea Salonga, with The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra, perform 'O Holy Night', which remains one of the most dramatically beautiful Christmas carols ever penned.

Watch The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra perform "Rocking Carol", a traditional 1920's Czech carol that was made popular in 1965, when Julie Andrews popularized it on a Christmas album. This arrangement by Mack Wilberg was written especially for The Tabernacle Choir’s 'Season of Light' Christmas concert.

Lea Salonga joins The Tabernacle Choir to perform "It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year". In this song, first recorded in 1963, actor and songwriter Eddie Pola and orchestra leader Wyle paint a charming, traditional portrait of Christmas, replete with caroling, Dickensian “ghost stories,” mistletoe, and convivial gatherings to illustrate the magic of the season.

Watch this stunningly beautiful choral adaptation performed by The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra. Johann Pachelbel was principally an organist, but also wrote vocal and chamber music, including the well-known Canon in D. Mack Wilberg’s new choral adaptation of this music sets a text drawn from Matthew 21:9, “Hosanna in the highest!”

The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square join with award winning artists Lea Salonga and Sir David Suchet for Season of Light: Christmas with The Tabernacle Choir, a festive and uplifting Christmas special. Filmed with a live audience, this concert will illuminate your holiday experience with timeless carols, treasured Christmas songs and a story of heroic service.

This orchestral arrangement of “Ding Dong! Merrily on High” was written especially for this concert by the Choir’s Associate Director, Ryan Murphy. “Ding Dong! Merrily on High” is a melody drawn from Johan Tabourot’s 1588 dance manual Orchésographie, where it functioned as an example of the “branle,” a lively commoner’s dance.

The finale of Camille Saint-Saëns’s “Organ” Symphony No. 3, composed in 1886, juxtaposes the solo organ with the orchestra in a dazzling display of majestic fanfares and triumphant melodies. Watch the organ showpiece of this year’s Christmas concert, where Principal Tabernacle Organist Richard Elliott borrows the Saint-Saëns model and extended this same treatment to the tune of the “Sussex Carol".

The son of Sir Nicholas Winton talks about his father's rescue work during World War II. There are many thousands of people across the world who are alive today because Sir Nicholas Winton helped rescue Jewish children at risk of being murdered by Nazis during the Holocaust. Hear what Nick Winton thinks his father would want, were he alive today.

Watch The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra perform 'Lo, How a Rose E’re Blooming'. This German devotional poem that this hymn is based on, “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen”, dates from the 15th century. Based on Messianic prophecies from Isaiah, the rose in this carol is a symbolic reference to Mary, the mother of Jesus.

World-renowned screen and stage actor Sir David Suchet presents the true and hope-filled story of Sir Nicholas Winton, a real-life hero who saved the lives of hundreds of Jewish children during World War II. Universally moving, and accompanied beautifully by the Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra, this part of the special invites hope and welcomes the spirit of sharing goodness this holiday season.

Payapang Daigdig, a beloved Philippine carol, is sometimes regarded as the Filipino equivalent of the Austrian carol “Silent Night,” as both carols refer to the stars as harbingers of peace in the world. This arrangement of “Payapang Daigdig,” which combines the two carols from different centuries and continents, was written by Mack Wilberg especially for Lea Salonga and The Tabernacle Choir.