The BYU Singers has been lauded throughout its 25-year history as an excellent choir that gives not only entertaining but spiritually uplifting performances, and they were recently recognized for this quality while on tour in Ireland.
The group is currently on a three-week tour of the island and was awarded second place at the prestigious Cork International Choral Festival, where it was the only non-European choir to compete.
The Singers came second behind the German choir Kammerchor, with only .7 percent separating the two groups.
The BYU choir also received the P.E.A.C.E. award, which recognized it for “touching the hearts of the people.”
Nick Bishop, a member of the Singers from Orem, said he is honored to be a part of the choir and receive these awards.
“Though we were awarded second place, our purpose was not to win, but rather to share, to touch and to testify, as evidenced by our winning of ... the P.E.A.C.E. prize,” he said in an e-mail.
The Singers also performed at a gala event May 3, where the group sang Eric Whitacre’s “Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine.”
“I hope I never forget the stirring speech Dr. Staheli gave before our performance at the gala concert as he announced the piece we would be performing and explained its message — that the human spirit is meant to aspire, to be inspired and to achieve noble goals through diligence,” Bishop said.
He also said the choir is unique for its emphasis on spiritual matters.
“The festival gave me a greater appreciation of the rarity of a choir who truly seeks to be unified in uplifting the audience rather than entertaining them,” he said. “Hearing the other choirs at the international festival made me feel so privileged to be a member of the BYU choral program, which is even more unique than I ever imagined.”
Christina Bishop, Nick Bishop’s wife, is also a member of the Singers and she said she enjoys being in the group.
“I feel a great sense of community with the choir members and I especially love that Dr. Staheli never allows us to settle for anything less than our very best,” she said in an e-mail. “I feel as though I have become more aware, more willing to risk and more in tune, musically and spiritually, as a result of my membership in Singers.”
Christina Bishop told of a Catholic mass the Singers attended in Bishopstown, near Cork, where they sang four religious pieces.
“Truly, we prepared more for this setting than for the competition because we wanted so badly to express our knowledge of the Savior’s capacity to heal us and give us peace,” she said.
Bishop said that after the concert she spoke to a woman whose mother had just passed away.
“She said [to me], ‘I had no idea you were going to be here sharing your music, but I’m so glad I came. Thank you.’ It was a very sweet moment for me,” Bishop said.
Sandefur Schmidt, a former member of the Singers who now works with the choir’s alumni is also touring with the group. She has been on many of the choir’s recent tours and updates a blog of their activities — singers.byu.edu/blog.
“This is a wonderful choir full of great singers, but also with equally strong spirits and testimony,” Schmidt said in an email. “They share their love and the joy they find in the gospel and music very freely with all they meet, whether LDS members or not.”
samshirley@byu.net
Copyright Brigham Young University 13 May 2009
