Kelli O’Hara, Richard Thomas join Tabernacle Choir Christmas
LOS ANGELES » Broadway’s Kelli O’Hara and Richard Thomas of “The Waltons” are the guest artists for “Christmas With The Tabernacle Choir,” but there’s another stellar attraction: The annual event was taped pre-coronavirus, free of health constraints or virtual tricks.
A 21,000-seat auditorium is home to the concert taped over three nights in December 2019 with the 360-member choir and a 110-musician orchestra. It’s standard practice to record the “spectacle” — as the elaborate, decades-old Christmas event is called — to air the following year and cherry-pick each performance’s highlights.
“Right now, it seems almost like it’s Mars,” O’Hara said, comparing the concert to events held under coronavirus restrictions. “I’m just really happy to be a part of it. I think it’ll be uplifting and something to look forward to.”
“Christmas With The Tabernacle Choir,” taped at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Temple Square complex in Salt Lake City, airs as an hourlong special tonight at 9 on PBS. A 90-minute version will air at 8 p.m. on Thursday on BYUtv, a cable and streaming channel.
As part of its “Americana Christmas” theme, the concert pays tribute to musical genres including folk, bluegrass and African American spirituals, and to holiday traditions and stories that are unique to the nation, according to a release.
Among the tunes: “Mashing Through the Snow,” aka “Jingle Bells,” with what’s described as an “organ extravaganza” played by Richard Elliott with the Cold Creek bluegrass band, and “Mary’s Little Boy Child,” a widely recorded song by the Black composer and actor Jester Hairston.
The extended BYUtv program includes a Rodgers and Hammerstein medley by O’Hara, who received the 2015 best musical actress Tony Award for her performance in the songwriting team’s “The King and I.”
Thomas serves as narrator and performs readings of an adaptation of Pearl S. Buck’s story “Christmas Day in the Morning,” an excerpt from Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” and Biblical passages describing the birth of Jesus.