Review
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Title: 20 Years of Christmas with The Tabernacle Choir
Artists: The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square and Orchestra at Temple Square
Length: 1:50:25
Publisher: Intellectual Reserve, Inc.
Genre: Christmas Music
Year Published: 2021
Format: Available on DVD and streaming on BYUtv and PBS.org
ISBN-13: 978-1-63993-004-3
Price: $19.99
Reviewed by Trevor Holyoak for the Association for Mormon Letters
20 Years of Christmas with The Tabernacle Choir was made in 2020 instead of doing a live concert, due to the pandemic. It is the equivalent of a “flashback episode” for the choir and orchestra, showcasing all of their previous concerts around the theme of “If these walls could speak.” The host, Brian Stokes Mitchell, takes us on a tour of parts of the Conference Center as he takes us back over the last 20 years to sample all of the different concerts.
20 Years of Christmas begins in the Little Theater, where the choir warms up, and a clip of “Joy to the World” is used as an example of the processionals that customarily begin the concert, along with other clips from concert openings. We are then taken to a tunnel where the host is driven by cart from the dressing room to the stage. For some reason, there is a part here that should have been reshot where the host has to say a line three times over the sound of an opening metal door.
We are shown samples of many guests, such as Gladys Knight, Angela Lansbury, David Archuletta, and even The Muppets. There are nearly 40 guests shown throughout, which are listed on the back cover. Unfortunately, most of these samples are quite short, which even my wife commented was annoying. However, the title and artist are shown on the screen for each segment so they can be looked up and viewed online at TabChoir.org in their entirety.
There are portions of the program that cover different themes such as Christmas Around the World, Christmas Classics, Christmas Fun, and Christmas Stories. Most of it is from past concerts, but there are a few segments that were recorded for this program, including an organ solo that keeps that tradition going.
Near the end of the program, another tradition is kept up, where Brian Stokes Mitchell tells the nativity story and is then accompanied by a socially distanced orchestra and a virtual choir singing “Infant Holy, Infant Lowly.” I really enjoyed this part and was interested to learn how the virtual choir was done from one of the accompanying “bonus” videos included on the DVD. Each member of the Tabernacle Choir recorded themselves singing at home, and they made sure each of them could be seen and heard.
The main program finishes by playing a montage of “Angels We Have Heard on High” made up of clips of many guests from over the years singing parts of it. It is very well done and flows together naturally. It was a fitting end for the tribute to 20 years of concerts.
The bonus material previously mentioned might be worth getting the DVD for if you enjoy the program. It contains a lot of material about not only the making of the program but also the making of many of the previous concerts, with stories about some of the guests. In fact, some parts rival the high points of the actual program.
Overall, 20 Years of Christmas was an enjoyable addition to my family’s Christmas this year. They didn’t even complain too much when I watched it twice to write this review. It was nice that they were able to still do something last year, despite the restrictions from the pandemic. As mentioned in one of the bonus videos, if it were not for that, the idea for this program, and the unique things it contains, would not have happened.