The Tabernacle Choir Blog

What Is Special about Choir’s “Love Thy Neighbor” Event?

The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square will present a special event “Love Thy Neighbor” on Friday and Saturday, July 15 and 16, at 8:00 p.m. in the Conference Center on Temple Square.

Tickets for the “Love Thy Neighbor” event are free but required. Each patron may request four tickets and admission is open to those eight years of age and older. Tickets are available for Friday, June 15, and Saturday, June 16.

What is special about this July event?

In today’s troubled and challenging times, this event is designed to bring needed comfort and hope, inspire kindness and concern, and encourage Christ-like outreach for everyone through its music and narration. This focus is a central message for The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra in their mission to inspire, uplift, and bless the world through their music—the world’s “universal language.”

It was former Church president Spencer W. Kimball who taught, “We are in a position, as musicians, to touch the souls of those who listen.”1

Choir president Michael Leavitt remarked, “The world needs the comfort and peace the Choir’s music brings. The music and message of the concert will focus on the Savior’s second commandment to ‘love thy neighbor.’ We aspire to help those watching and listening to feel closer to God, experience His love, and feel prompted to share that love with others.”  

The featured soloist for “Love Thy Neighbor” concert will be baritone, Shea Owens.2 Owens was recently a member of the ensemble at Theater St. Gallen in Switzerland at which his roles included Belcore in L’elisir d’amore, Marcello in La bohème, Valentin in Faust, and Alvaro in Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas, among others. He sang Colonel Ricci in Sondheim’s Passion at the Théâtre du Chátelet and joined the orchestra of the Grand Théatre de Genève in concerts of popular repertoire. Owens is now the Director of Opera at Brigham Young University and recently sang his first performances of the title role of Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the university’s choirs at the Cathedral of the Madeleine. He also returned this season to Utah Opera as Samuel in The Pirates of Penzance.  

Other Airings and Streams

The event will be streamed on Saturday, July 16 at 8 p.m. (mountain) on the Choir’s YouTube channel (YouTube.com/TheTabernacleChoir), on the Choir’s website (TheTabernacleChoir.org), on Broadcasts.ChurchofJesusChrist.org, and on five of the Church's YouTube foreign language channels (see below). It will be aired on BYUtv on Sunday, July 24 at 3:30 p.m. (mountain) and will also be available on BYUtv.org, the BYUtv app, and the KSL-TV app.

Language Options

To reach audiences around the world, the program streamed on Saturday will offer narration translations in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish that audiences can find on the Church's YouTube language pages. (Prior to the event, the Choir will provide hyperlinks to this specific event on these pages.)

  1. President Spencer W. Kimball, Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball (1982), 520
  2. Baritone Shea Owens was recently a member of the ensemble at Theater St. Gallen in Switzerland, at which his roles included Belcore in L’elisir d’amore, Marcello in La bohème, Valentin in Faust, and Alvaro in Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas, among others. On the concert stage he sang Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and Cimarosa’s Il maestro di cappella with the Sinfonieorchester St. Gallen. He sang Colonel Ricci in Sondheim’s Passion at the Théâtre du Chátelet and joined the orchestra of the Grand Théatre de Genève in concerts of popular repertoire.

    Mr. Owens is now the Director of Opera at Brigham Young University and recently sang his first performances of the title role of Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the university’s choirs at the Cathedral of the Madeleine. Also this season he returned to Utah Opera as Samuel in The Pirates of Penzance after previously joining the company as a member of its Young Artist Program. Along with traditional operatic and concert work, he especially enjoys the challenge and novelty of interpreting the works of living composers and has sung Charlie in Jake Heggie’s Three Decembers alongside legendary mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade.