General Conference - 7 choir related things you may not know

General Conference happens twice a year. The choir sings in three of the sessions.

Here are seven things you may not know about being a choir member and Conference.

• Conference music list can be changed up until right before conference.
• We don't begin practicing for General Conference until about a week before General Conference. We are doing a lot of things and scheduling is tight.
• This was the first conference where the music list for the sessions did not include two back-up hymns.
• Memorizing unfamiliar hymns is not as easy as most people think. We sing these for the opening of Saturday and Sunday morning sessions. The lyrics can be pretty tricky.
• We arrive at around 7:15 am on Sunday mornings for rehearsal. We have a short 15 minute break then perform Music and the Spoken Word and the Sunday morning session. We rehearse after that and have about an 45 minutes to an hour for lunch and then sing the final session. After the session ends we wait in our seats until we are excused because of possible congestion getting through to the Tabernacle. Sunday can be a long day. 
• There are more singers than seats. 
• What some people may not know is that we have new-ish arrangements and new pieces we do for conference. I will explain this below.

We opened conference with a new arrangement of "We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet" which I absolutely love. We received the music just a few rehearsals before conference. Singing this arrangement during the opening session of conference really set the tone for the rest of weekend. Listen to it. I hope we can sing this version with a orchestral arrangement.



We ended Conference with the stirring arrangement of "Let Us All Press On" by Richard Elliot. We originally sang this for Conference when I joined the choir. To sing it again this time after a few years in the choir was a moving experience for me because I could measure my growth since that time. I was a scared, nervous, insecure choir member. I have grown so much and largely because I just learned to "press on" through everything that I have been asked to do. The ending of this song is so powerful. A hushed reminder that an unseen power will aid all of us in whatever we are asked to do.



Conference was a wonderful opportunity to reset, recharge and renew even though it can be pretty busy.