New Tabernacle Choir Website Helps Choir, Fans Connect

Contributed By By Ryan Morgenegg, Church News Staff writer

  • 11 June 2013

The upgraded Tabernacle Choir website offers a host of new features and looks cleaner and crisper. The design is similar to other Church websites such as ChurchofJesusChrist.org.

Article Highlights

  • The Mormon Tabernacle Choir website has been upgraded.
  • New and improved features include better keyword searches, responsive design for viewing on mobile devices, and better integration with other Church websites.
  • The site also lists every song produced on the choir’s own record label, as well as nearly all of the choir’s albums in its 100-year recording history.

“The choir was given the moniker ‘America’s Choir,’ but in the age of new media, it might really be called the world’s choir. The website is just one of the many ways of connecting with people.” —Kim Farah, Church public affairs

It’s the 10-year anniversary of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s first launch into cyberspace, and the Church has completed its first major upgrade to the choir’s website. The site has a host of new features and takes advantage of several technological advancements. It brings a crisper, more engaging experience right to fans’ fingertips. Take a peek at mormontabernaclechoir.org.

The look of the website is completely different and resembles the Church’s flagship site, ChurchofJesusChrist.org. The site has better keyword searches, responsive design for viewing on mobile devices, and better integration with other Church websites. It also has better back-end analytics that will enable the choir staff to improve the user experience of visitors over time. 

“One of the key messages from the choir is that it crosses cultural and generational boundaries,” said Scott Barrick, general manager of the choir. “We know that not everyone can live in Salt Lake and listen to the choir live whenever they want. We want to share the choir with everyone wherever they are with our website.”

With a presence on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, the choir is reaching out to fans around the globe with social media. Kim Farah with Church public affairs said, “The choir was given the moniker ‘America’s Choir,’ but in the age of new media, it might really be called the world’s choir. The website is just one of the many ways of connecting with people.”

The About Us section on the site is greatly expanded with more information, facts, and details about each of the choir organizations—the choir, the orchestra, and the bell ensemble. Fans can also find out more about the history of the choir, its purpose, and how it has evolved over the years. There is a treasure trove of visual assets from the choir that will be shared on the site, including information about all of the guest artists who have performed over the years.

A new feature on the site is the newsroom. “As we go on tour, this is a page that the news media will frequent for press releases, bios on choir leaders, and high-resolution photographs,” said Brother Barrick. “It also shows what others are saying about the choir from news outlets all over the web.” A new expanded calendar section alerts fans about upcoming events and concerts.

The new Shop section of the website contains a listing of every song produced on the choir’s own record label, as well as nearly all of the choir’s albums in its 100-year recording history. For example. the all-time best-selling album produced on the choir’s own record label is Consider the Lilies. It has sold more than 350,000 copies. Thirty-second samples of this and many of the choir’s titles can be played right on the site with links to Amazon, iTunes, Deseret Book, and store.ChurchofJesusChrist.org to help fans acquire the music. A better search function also helps visitors find the songs they’re looking for and what albums contain those songs.

An expanded Blog section will be populated by comments about the choir and orchestra. A feature acting like a giant web crawler can pull comments onto the page from anywhere on the web dealing with information on that particular web page, forming a discussion thread.

During the choir’s tour this month, the blog section will highlight stories by choir and orchestra members. “We want to share our tour experience with people on the website,” said Brother Barrick. “There will be lots of photos and an essay each day from a choir member about what that day meant to them.”

Members of the Church love the choir and are proud of it, but the website was built for fans of the choir whether they are members of the Church or not. Some fans love the choir but are not interested in religion. Brother Barrick said, “A woman I met in the southern United States said, ‘Look, honey, when it comes to my religion, I’m Episcopalian through and through, but when it comes to my music, I’m all Mormon Tabernacle Choir.’ That woman should feel comfortable on the site and enjoy it regardless of her religious affiliation.”

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square will visit six cities in America’s heartland June 12 through June 20. This is their first visit to the upper Midwest since 2007. The tour will include stops in Columbus, Indianapolis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, and Minneapolis. (For information about tickets, go to mormontabernaclechoir.org and click on Events & Tickets.)

When the choir gets back from the tour, fans are in for more exciting performances. LDS artists Lindsey Stirling and Nathan Pacheco will perform with the choir and Orchestra at Temple Square at the Pioneer Day concert on Friday and Saturday, July 19 and 20, at 8:00 p.m. in the Conference Center. On Friday and Saturday, September 6 and 7, five-time Grammy Award–winning artist James Taylor will perform with the choir in the Conference Center.

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