The Ogden, Utah Temple re-dedication ceremony was broadcast church-wide, but only recommend-holding Latter-Day Saints were admitted. The ceremony itself took place in a relatively small chapel, so the choir and organ were of much humbler aspect than might be expected by those whose familiarity with Mormon music is limited to the Tabernacle Choir.

They only had twenty choir members. That’s right around the bare minimum required for individual voices to not stand out, but even so it takes a lot of training to get that clean, choral sound out of such a small group.

They nailed it. The ceremony itself was wonderful, and very spiritual, but the high points for me were the choir numbers. As the camera panned across them I watched their mouths, and sure enough, they were taking great care to all shape their sounds the same way. Sure, they were all in tune, but that’s the most very basic level of choir performance. None of the syllables stuck out. None of the individual voices protruded at all. They were, in a word, tight.

Anyway, it was a lovely ceremony, and I’m quite impressed by the preparation that went into the music.