Famous Mormon Choir May Visit N.Z.

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30803, 15 July 1965, Page 13

Famous Mormon Choir May Visit N.Z.

Mr M. Rickard, the controller of programmes (sound) for the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation, has invited the 375-voice Mormon Tabernacle Choir to visit New Zealand. He is in the United States aS a guest of the State Department, looking at radio and television programming and recruiting musicians for the N.Z.B.C. Symphony Orchestra. Mr Rickard attended the weekly broadcast of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in Salt Lake City, and said that he intended to raise the matter of a visit to New Zealand by the choir when he called on the State Department in Washington. He attended a performance of the Utah Symphony Orchestra, and told the Mormons that he planned to take the

■ N.Z.B.C. Symphony Orchestra i to the United States on tour - in 1967 and hoped to include ■ Salt Lake City on the itineri ary.

Mr Rickard visited President H. B. Brown, the first counsellor in the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and was given a guided tour of Temple Square and the headquarters of the church.

He also met Elder R. L. Evans, a member of the church’s Council of Twelve Apostles, and president-elect of Rotary

International, and visited radio and- television facilities at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. In Utah, Mr Rickard and his family stayed with Mr F. W. Schwendiman, former president of the New Zealand South Mission of the Mormon Church.