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“More Precious
than Gold”
The Sacramento California Temple Youth Cultural Celebration, Part
5
(continued from Part
4)
The Music
All of the songs for “More Precious
than Gold,” except for the hymns, were original, and according
to Stan Zenk, who was an editor of our LDS Hymns book, “some
of them are worthy of becoming classics.”
Paul Allen and team just before the performance.
Under the direction of Paul Allen,
the script was presented to 12 musicians in the temple district,
with the places for songs noted and the essence of the ideas expressed.
The musicians were told to think about the script and the song ideas
and, instead of being assigned to work on a piece of music, see
if they felt personally impressed to create on any of the songs.
By the next week, several of the musicians
already had composed songs and were ready to play them. Remarkably,
with very few exceptions, the composers had created songs that spanned
the various needs of the script with few duplications, and music
was composed within about six weeks.
Song
writers included Sherrie Chretien, Stan Zenk, Cecilie Busath King,
James ‘Uiha, Rob Kroff and Ria Barrdo-Kroff, and Rosalind
Crosby. Lyricists and orchestrators included Richard and Jeri Clinger,
Wendy Palmer and Kathy Visher.
To create music worthy of the standard
they wanted, Paul Allen and Stan Zenk worked first to lay the track
for a synthetic orchestra. Then later another track was added of
a live orchestra of about 40 youth in the temple district. With
this approach, the music had the sounds of a live orchestra with
the support of a synthetic one, and amateur performers ended up
with a powerful sound.
“We didn’t know what happened
when it actually came time to lay down the live orchestra,”
Paul said. “but people won’t believe the power of what
they hear in this program.”
This was not an easy trick to accomplish.
The youth received the music well in advance, learned it, and then
came together for two weekends of recording sessions. Recording
with a synthetic orchestra is so difficult, that by about noon on
the first Saturday, discouragement had settled over the room. They
stopped and had a prayer together, and after that everything changed.
“The stress lifted and the Spirit came into the process. We
were able to record about five songs in two hours,” said Paul.
A sound track of the choir was also
created for the evening and then used in a unique way. As the choir
sang live the evening of the performance, they sang to monitors
with the pre-recorded songs, but the audience only heard the live
voices pumped back to them.
The result again was masterful, moving
— amazing.
Impact on the Youth
After all the compliments, after the
pouring out of the Spirit upon the performance, the final measure
of success was in the lives of the youth.
President Treadway said, “You
must all know of the impact this event has had on my youth. They
were jubilant, euphoric, and joyful last night. Young women who
come from the hardest neighborhoods with no family support outside
of youth leaders, were as radiant last night as I’ve ever
seen them. Young men who shyly avoided opportunities to speak in
the past, enthusiastically agreed to speak in Stake Conference today.”
Timothy Bradford, a priest from the
Roseville 2nd Ward, summed it up in a thank you note to Scott Eckern.
“This was such a wonderful experience and I believe it has
helped prepare me for my mission.”
That’s all the thanks hundreds
of adults who worked a year for a single performance needed to know.
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