Mormon Tabernacle Choir Marks 1 Million YouTube Hits With New Music Video and Billboard Magazine Top Honors

Salt Lake City — The Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s YouTube channel has reached the millionth hit milestone just three months after its official launch in October. Music director Mack Wilberg expressed his gratitude to viewers in a video posted to the choir’s channel. “Thank you for supporting our YouTube channel. We are happy to announce that we have reached over 1 million views. We look forward to the next million!”

And now choir fans will have another reason to visit the YouTube channel. Today the choir premiers its newest music video, “‘Give,’ Said the Little Stream.” The video is a sprightly rendition of the beloved children’s song arranged by assistant director Ryan Murphy. The music video is what Ed Payne, producer of Music & the Spoken Word, calls the “back story.” Cameras followed six choir members into their homes to see just how they give of themselves. “It’s one thing to see choir members in the loft,” Payne explains, “but when you see them living the words they sing, the music takes on new meaning. The words suddenly have faces, and that integrity is what makes the video more than just pictures and a song.” The video features choir members working with their children, visiting the sick, helping an aged mother and fixing a faucet among other things. This look into the real lives of choir members reinforces the song’s message of loving service in a poignant and powerful way.

The music video reinforces the unique experience of visitors to the channel, who find, in addition to uplifting music, behind-the-scenes tours, concert sneak peeks, and private interviews with choir members and leaders. Fans from around the world have responded so enthusiastically to the invitation to experience the choir in a brand-new way that they have collectively spent almost 3.5 million minutes — more than 6 years’ time — watching performances, concerts and music videos on the channel. The channel is constantly expanding, with hours of new material uploaded weekly, including full episodes of Music & the Spoken Word, past Christmas specials and concerts featuring special guests.

In addition to reaching 1 million YouTube hits, the choir has another reason to celebrate: Billboard Magazine named the Mormon Tabernacle Choir the #1 Traditional Classical Albums Artist for 2012. In fact, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square charted on five of the year-end lists, and twice on an albums list.

It will be a busy year for the choir and orchestra as they prepare for their tour to six cities in America’s heartland this summer — their first visit to the upper Midwest since 2009. The tour will include stops in Columbus, Indianapolis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison and Minneapolis from 12 June through 20 June 2013.