I am going to play the Tabernacle Organ!!!

Melanee arranged for me to play the Tabernacle Organ!! I am so excited!!! You are all invited. I have scheduled Saturday January 31. I will play after the noon recital. Sister Bonnie Goodlife is the organist. You can come into the Tabernacle for the recital.

The organ recital is 12:00 p.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Tabernacle. Entrance to the Tabernacle is at door 11. (on the East side of the Tabernacle). If you want to sit in the choir seats for the recital, you need to be at door 2 at 11:45 am. Sister Goodlife will take us in then. If we are not at door 2 (on the South West side of the Tabernacle) at 11:45, we will be able to sit in the audience and come up to the organ/choir seats after the recital ends.

Apparently the sound is better in the audience than in the choir seats, but you are able to see the organ and the organist better if you are sitting in the choir seats.

Sister Goodlife said that security gets really nervous if people wander around inside the Tabernacle and go backstage, etc, so we need to stay as a group in the choir seats after the recital ends. She said she can show us anything backstage in the Tabernacle if she is with us. She also suggested that we not bring young children. Older children who can sit quietly and are easily controlled are okay.

(Some guidelines on the website: We respectfully request that no photographic or recording equipment be used during the recitals. Visitors are free to take pictures before and after the recitals. Visitors who desire to leave early may do so after the first selection. Thereafter the doors will remain closed until the recital concludes.)

We can fit 7 people in the Acura and we can park that car in the underground parking. Anyone who wants can ride with us, up to 7 people. We can coordinate rides if you want, let me know.

The Tabernacle organ has an interesting history. President Brigham Young asked Joseph Harris Ridges, who was born and raised near an organ factory in England, to build the first Tabernacle organ. Suitable timber was located and brought by volunteers from the Parowan and Pine Valley mountains, 300 miles south of Salt Lake City. In the beginning, the organ was powered by hand-pumped bellows, later by water power, and today by electricity. With improved techniques in organ construction, the instrument has been renovated and enlarged several times. Now comprising 11,623 pipes, the organ has 206 sets of pipes (ranks) or voices, and the console has 5 manuals, or keyboards. The Tabernacle organ is considered to be one of the finest organs in the world.

onnie Goodliffe has an extensive background in organ performance, music theory and composition. She has served as a Tabernacle Organist for nearly a quarter of a century and in key positions with the American Guild of Organists. As one of the Tabernacle organists, Goodliffe performs with both the Tabernacle Choir and the Temple Square Chorale. She also joins with her fellow organists in presenting daily 30-minute organ recitals in the Tabernacle. In addition, Goodliffe teaches music theory in the three- month Choir training school conducted twice each year for new entrants to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and as in- service for current Choir members. Goodliffe has been a Tabernacle organist since 1979. She studied piano and organ at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, and at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Bonnie received both her bachelor's and master's degrees in music from Brigham Young University. Goodliffe was a member of the executive committee responsible for the new hymn book. She also wrote the hymn "We Meet Again as Sisters." Goodliffe and her husband, Glade, a CPA and business consultant, are the parents of seven children.