Room for Everyone

by JIM BENNETT

Auditioning for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir - pardon me, the Tabernacle Choir on Temple Square, although all their letterhead still uses the MoTab moniker - is a three-step process. The first involves sending in a recorded audition on a physical CD which, in an era of MP3s and Spotify, feels a bit like texting people with a rotary phone. When I decided to try out, I wanted to listen to my audition performance before mailing it in, but since it’s no longer 1993, the only CD player I had available was in the 5-disc CD changer in our car. So I had to swap out one of our CDs to make room for my amateur a cappella rendition of “O My Father” that I could listen to on the way to the post office. 

A few days later, my wife told me she’d been listening to my audition on the way to work, which, of course, meant that whatever CD I had accidentally sent to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir - oops, silly me, I mean the Tabernacle Choir on Temple Square, despite the big, screaming “Mormon Tabernacle Choir” sign still hanging in their front office - was not “O My Father” at all. It turned out to be my daughter’s rather eclectic playlist that began with the 80s hit “Kiss” by Prince, the Purple One himself. I chuckled to myself as I imagined the staff plopping the CD into a boom box, pressing “play,” and, expecting a hymn, suddenly being subjected to a creepy falsetto singing “You don’t have to be rich to be my girl…” 

Thankfully, all was not lost, as the choir office called and told me they would allow me, just this once, to use the conveniences of modern technology and email them a digital audio file, which I did. I ran the rest of the audition gauntlet, and, no joke, I received an email telling me the letter telling me whether or not I had made it into the choir had been placed in the mail and should arrive in the next couple of days. I can’t prove it, but I assume all choir correspondence is still delivered by the Pony Express.

And thus it was that I ended up as the choir’s newest member, or at least prospective member. I now attend a three month Choir School and spend Tuesday and Thursday evenings in the bowels of the tunnels beneath Temple Square, which are sort of a well-lit, orc-free version of the Mines of Moria, only with better parking. 

On the first day of Choir School, we received a visit from Mack Willberg, the renowned MoTab conductor - sorry, I mean TabCATS conductor, which is probably a more accurate nickname, since there seems to be quite a bit of cat-herding in managing a 360-person ensemble. Dr. Willberg had descended into the abyss to address the new recruits and read his list of what he called “You-will-be-disappointed-ifs.” For instance, he told us you will be disappointed if you joined the choir to become a TV star. He also said you will also be disappointed if you joined the choir expecting to be a soloist. Both sounded reasonable, but as the list wore on, the potential disappointments got increasingly silly. I finally laughed out loud when he told everyone they will be disappointed if they have original poetry that they expect the choir to set to music. 

Later in that session, we were given a tour of the underground labyrinth, and the choir staffer leading us around asked at the outset if there were any questions. 

“Yeah,” I said. “Are you the guy I submit my poetry to?”

Now I thought that was pretty funny, but I would have gotten a better response if I had belched in his face instead. He said something about not needing “smart alecks” in the choir, and nobody else was dumb enough to ask anything else. Later in the tour, I bumped into a choir member who was an old friend I hadn’t seen in years, and I briefly stepped out of line to give her a quick hug. That, too, was a bad idea, and my guide told me that was strike two. I kept my head down for the rest of the evening, and, near the end of the tour, a fellow greenie whispered, “Congratulations - you’ve gone at least thirty seconds without doing something stupid.”

Now I’ve been in Choir School for almost a month, and I’ve just about managed to live down the infamy I earned on that first night. But the whole experience has raised a profound theological question.

Does God really not want any smart alecks in the choir?

I have to believe that with all the emphasis on reverence and holiness, there is still room in the worship of the divine for a sense of humor. I will be disappointed if that isn’t the case, but not as disappointed as I am that all of my non-musical poetry is now going to waste.