BYU-Idaho music students took a performance centered on the theme “Choose Love,” to audiences across Montana and Alberta, Canada during their April tour.
The combined ensemble—featuring BYU-Idaho’s premier choir, Collegiate Singers, and a cappella group, Vocal Union—performed a broad musical program that included familiar hymns such as “This Little Light of Mine,” alongside Broadway hits like “You Will Be Found” from Dear, Evan Hansen.
Students said the tour helped them sharpen their musical skills.
“I have learned a lot about how you need to listen to each other,” said Naomi Yost, a music education major from Ucon, Idaho. “When you do, you can really lock those chords in and create these beautiful overtones.”
Thomas Farr, who graduated in music education just before leaving on tour shared how the tour pushed him as a performer with every night’s show evolving throughout the tour.
“The tour is ever-changing. This performance is not static,” Farr said. “Every night, it's going to be a little bit different, not just because we have a different audience, but because we are actively changing the show as we figure out what works, what we want to adjust. And that's probably the most enjoyable part of it. We're never performing the exact same chart twice.”
For many students, the tour was a unifying experience that brought the choir members closer to one another and to God.
“Being on tour together, we've been able to come together as one and … demonstrate a Zion in that kind of sense and just being able to testify through our music and through being with people and talking to the audience members and just to each other, and it's been really cool to serve that way,” said Charlotte Goldthorpe, a music major from McGrath, Alberta.
Throughout the nine-day tour, students performed in front of hundreds of people each night while making stops during the day to perform in retirement centers and high schools.
Kate Rowberry, an elementary education major from Irvine, California, shared how performing in smaller settings was especially meaningful.
“I have loved being able to go and share our music with other people,” Rowberry said. “Just having those moments, those really intimate moments with people to share what we love to them, and have that impact on them has been really, really special for me.”
While the students enjoyed performing in new venues each night, it was connecting with the audiences after each show that they found the most rewarding.
“Being able to connect with people is probably the most important part of this tour,” Farr said. “The performance is fun. The performance is what I initially came here to do. But it's the fellowshipping with people afterwards, where I get to connect with them and learn about their experience, learn about how their testimony has grown through this performance. That's what really touches me, really makes this worth it, makes this worthwhile.”
The tour also strengthened the students’ faith as they rehearsed and performed songs centered on God’s divine love.
“I definitely think ‘Oh, Love’ has had a huge impact on me just because the message reminds me a lot of my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, where it talks about their love will not let us go and just singing about those things that no matter what you do, they're going to love you no matter what,” Yost said.
Several students pointed to singing “Let My Love Be Heard” during a rehearsal just prior to the show one evening as a defining moment of the tour.
“The spirit was just so unbelievably strong about feeling His love, about letting our love be shown to others and letting His love be shown to others, and that's been a special song for me ever since, and so I'm really thinking about that meaning of spreading not only our love, but His love,” Rowberry said.
For Carson Matthews, a music major from Denver, Colorado the theme of love on tour created a special bond among the students as well.
“This entire tour is centered on love. And it's been a really cool experience to be thinking about that and to be reflecting on that because it's helped me to increase my love for everybody in the choir,” Matthews said. “These are all my very, very good friends, and of course I loved them before. But I've gained such a deeper love and a greater appreciation for each person in this choir. It's been really, really cool to get closer to them.”
As the group returned home, students said the lessons they learned on tour—both musical and spiritual—will continue to shape their lives long after the final performance.
“Being surrounded by these people has helped me learn how to handle difficult situations in a Christlike way because we raise each other up and lift each other. And I want to take that home to my family and do that to my family as well,” Yost said.