Piping Up! Organ Concerts at Temple Square is streamed online every Wednesday at 12:00 noon MDT. Piping Up! can be viewed on TheTabernacleChoir.org, the Choir’s YouTube channel, the Choir’s Facebook page, and Broadcasts.ChurchofJesusChrist.org. When concerts are concluded, they are available for on-demand viewing on the Choir’s website, YouTube and Facebook.

These programs continue the tradition of noon organ recitals at Temple Square—a tradition that has lasted for more than a century. The concerts are produced without an audience and comply with all COVID-19 guidelines. Each concert will feature a different Tabernacle or Temple Square organist and is hosted by Luke Howard.

Repertoire

Organist: John Longhurst, Organist Emeritus

1. Fanfare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leo Sowerby
2. a. Das alte Jahr vergangen ist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Johann Sebastian Bach
    b. Brigham Young's Funeral March. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Joseph J. Daynes
3. a. Come, Come, Ye Saints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . arr. by organist
    b. Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . arr. by organist
4. Rejoice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Noël Goemanne

Focus Piece

An on-going feature of Piping Up! Organ Concerts at Temple Square is a focus piece with additional inspirational background on a specific repertoire selection. Written by host Luke Howard, a professor of music at Brigham Young University, the focus piece connects the music in a unique way to lift and inspire listeners.

“Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me” (Gould, arr. Longhurst)

The turning of the year has long been an opportunity for reflection and self-assessment, for taking stock of where we are on the path to where we hope to be. This is why the month of January was named after the Roman god Janus, who is represented with two faces—one looking back, the other, forward. Janus was the god of transitions, doorways, beginnings and endings.

Marking the new year can be bittersweet. It’s an opportunity, first, to be grateful, especially if the previous year has been filled with joyful memories or significant accomplishments. Perhaps it was a year we reconnected with a lost friend, or found a new job that gave us an increased sense of value or independence. Maybe we formed or strengthened important relationships.

But not everyone is able to look back with wistful nostalgia. This past year has been especially difficult for many people, and the new year offers at least a conceptual reset button, a chance to begin healing or rebuilding. The sweetness comes more in the hope of a better future than in the fraught memories of an arduous past.

For everyone, in all circumstances, the path ahead will always be unpredictable. We would all benefit from guidance, someone who knows perfectly the course we’re on, and who can help us navigate its hazards. We need a pilot.

The hymn “Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me,” was penned in 1871 by the Reverend Edward Hopper, Pastor of the Church of Sea and Land in New York City. It was commissioned by the Seaman’s Friend Society. This was a society and a congregation who understood first-hand the perilous dangers of open-sea sailing, and who knew the value of an experienced ship’s pilot in negotiating its deadly hazards:

“Jesus, Savior, pilot me
Over life’s tempestuous sea,
Unknown waves before me roll,
Hiding rock and treacherous shoal.
Chart and compass come from Thee—
Jesus, Savior, pilot me.”¹

He who commanded the waves on the Sea of Galilee to “be still”² can certainly pilot us safely through the “unknown waves” ahead. His “chart and compass,” His gospel, will help us steer a safer course through “life’s tempestuous sea.”

John Longhurst plays now his own arrangement of the hymn tune “Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me.”

1. https://hymnary.org/text/jesus_savior_pilot_me
2. See Mark 4:29