There will be a choir concert livestreamed at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. The choirs involved in the concert include the men’s and women’s choirs as well as Bella Voce.
Bella Voce is an all-women’s intermediate choir created to give more chances to female singers during the pandemic. Rebecca Pyper-Busselberg directs the choir.
“Sister Busselberg, even though she’s only been doing this ensemble for a few semesters, she’s so committed and wants this to be a great experience,” said Louis Moyers, a music education major who sings in Bella Voce. “She wants the girls to have a great time and she wants them to know she has a testimony and that these songs testify of Christ.”
Paul Busselberg directs the Men’s Chorus. One thing he has the singers focus on during their songs is how they can bring their audience closer to the spirit of Jesus Christ.
“I find that most of the time when I’m having a stressful day and I’m not really feeling like I want to go to choir, like, that seems like the last thing I want to go to. Afterwards, I feel a lot better because I’ve just spent the past hour singing praises to the Lord and been doing it with people that have similar values as I do. It really builds this kind of family,” said Gabriel Taylor, one of the members of the Men’s Chorus.
The choirs will sing a variety of works including songs by Z. Randall Stroop, Moses Hogan, and two compositions by Paul Busselberg titled “Sweet Rivers of Redeeming Love” and “Come Ye That love the Lord.”
Moyers and Taylor said the focus of the concert is to invite audiences to remember Jesus Christ.
“There’s always a focus on the Lord and something is always very consistent with our practices and very evident is that we warm up with a hymn, and then we say a prayer to start our class, and then we continue to pray, like, through song. And after that, it’s like, okay, we’re going to keep praying. That’s why we choose the songs that we’ve chosen,” Taylor said.
Moyer shared an anecdote that another choir director shared with her, the three audiences.
“The first audience is like, us, the choir. The second audience is going to be the audience on the screen, you know, the people that are going to be hearing us over the internet. And the third audience is always Heaven. Always. They always are going to hear. If we are testifying of the Savior heaven is going to hear it. And I want to sing well so I can testify of God,” Moyer said.
The concert will be live streamed Saturday, June 26 at 7:30 p.m. on the BYU-Idaho live events page.