By STEVE JENSE
Work requires some people to be constantly on the move. But when you're a member of one of the premier choirs in the world, nothing is more rewarding than going to work to move people.
Several BYU alumni and faculty members are involved in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Sunday they performed for former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at the weekly 'Music and the Spoken Word,' the longest running radio network broadcast in the nation.
'You could tell she was very moved from the broadcast,' said choir member Vance Everett, who is also assistant manager for the computer system at the Clark Law Building.
Thatcher turned the standing ovation she was given back to the choir and then waved as she was leaving, Everett said.
'She was very overwhelmed. You could tell,' Everett said.
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir has performed in such places as the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, the Royal Albert Hall in London and the Philharmonic Hall in St. Petersburg, Russia. Kings and queens from England, Norway and Sweden have welcomed opportunities to hear it. The choir even sang at the presidential inaugurations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush.
Choir Conductor Jerold Ottley, who received his first degree from BYU in music education in 1957, said he never dreamed that someday he would wave the baton for one of the world's premier choirs.
'Not in my wildest science-fiction imaginings,' he said.
But out of all the honors that come with being conductor of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Ottley said, none compares with performing right at home in the tabernacle on Temple Square.
'The general conferences (of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) are by far and away the high points,' he said.
Choir member Jon D. Green, BYU associate professor of humanities, agreed with Ottley that performing with the choir is an honor.
'The Tabernacle Choir is like a giant plow that softens up the hearts of the people so that the seed of truth can begin to grow,' he said.
Green said 90 percent of the people who hear the choir are not members of the LDS Church. He contrasted the great impact the choir has on people to the less effective way of finding converts through knocking doors.
'When you pound on doors the people are not emotionally perceptive to the gospel because they might have just had an argument with their wife or a fight with their kids,' Green said.
But Green said he has seen how music from the Tabernacle Choir has touched people who are not familiar to spiritual feelings.
'I see people that are wiping tears out of their eyes and saying 'Oh my gosh, what is this I feel?''