.
Friday, October 9, 2015
J Spencer Cornwall - On The Job
Music was J. Spencer's Cornwall's life from an early age. When 5 years old he learned to play the organ from his aunt. His mother took her 5 boys to concerts and theater regularly in the frontier town of Salt Lake in the late 1800's. In college his goal to be a doctor was side tracked due to lack of funds and the ability to make money playing and conducting. His entire life he taught voice and piano and then in later years he taught conducting. 'Spence' served as superintendent of music for Salt Lake City Schools and then for the Granite School District until 1935 when he took the baton to lead the Mormon Tabernacle Choir into the modern age of recording, refinement, touring and world renown professionalism.
.
.
.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Wow - now that is an amazing job. Good to see J. Spencer in action. So thankful that I met him.
ReplyDeleteGrandpa's arrangement of Come, Come Ye Saints was the Choir's anthem for over half a century. Theh the era of Wilburg arrangements came along that include the wonderful orchestra. So, we don't hear Grandpa's arrangement any more. Wilburg's arrangement is beautiful musically, Grandpa's arrange is interpretatively and emotionally perfect.
ReplyDeleteNote: more details of Grandpa's background can be found in the Church News article on his retirement... if you can blow it up enough to read the text.
CORRECTION - The year of the commemorative concert shown in the video clip is 1979 not as displayed. The video clip has been on YouTube for many years. I came across a DVD of it in my father's memorabilia. I remastered it as best as the video software and my abilities could do for this post. I added the title slide to the video. The date on the title slide is from the label my father made for the DVD. After the post was made, I assessed that J. Spencer would not have been 91 (as the video documents) in 1970. We have photos of him with Jason (born 1980) and Robbie (born in 1982). He died in 1983. And he didn't live to be over 100. The correct date of the anniversary concert is 1979.
ReplyDelete