PASAY CITY, Philippines — Standing outside a meetinghouse of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a group of missionaries spent hours before The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square concert livestream on Feb. 28 walking around the neighborhood and inviting anyone passing by to come back for a tour of the chapel and to the concert.
Whether it was people walking, in a car or a minibus-like jeepney or on a motorcycle, the missionaries called out to invite them.
Two elders took a banner down to a busy street corner to point people to their meetinghouse. The SM Mall of Asia Arena, where the live concert was being performed, is about 2.8 kilometers, or about 1.5 miles, through the metro Manila’s busy streets from the Church building on Russel Avenue. There, more than 150 people, including many members of the Pasay Philippines Stake, celebrated the choir and orchestra’s concert livestream with balloons, banners and food.
“We know we can’t sing to everybody in the Philippines in a single concert hall or in a single concert or even in multiple concerts. But we can reach them digitally. We can reach them by streaming,” said President L. Whitney Clayton, first counselor in the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square presidency.
The two-hour concert was livestreamed on Wednesday, Feb. 28, at 8 p.m., Philippine time, on the choir’s YouTube channel. The livestream of the SM Mall of Asia Arena concert will be live for a year, President Clayton said.
More than 39,000 people gathered at some 200 watch parties throughout Luzon in the north, the central Visayas and Mindanao in the south — the three main island groups of the more than 7,100 islands that comprise the Philippines, the Tabernacle Choir Philippines Tour Facebook page reported. The watch parties were in Church meetinghouses, movie theaters, town halls and public squares.
The all-volunteer Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square were performing in the SM Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City in metro Manilla as part of the multiyear, multicity tour to share hope. In the Philippines, it’s the “Himig ng Pag-asa” tour or “melody of hope” tour.
The concert featured Broadway singer and actress Lea Salonga, singer Ysabella Cuevas, and TV personalities and concert hosts Suzi Entrata-Abrera and Paolo Abrera.
Initial viewership of the livestream showed that nearly 60,000 watched in the first hour. By Friday, March 1, in the afternoon (in the U.S.) — two days after its initial broadcast — the views had more than doubled to nearly 140,000 and continued to grow.
The choir and orchestra’s first stop in the “Hope” tour was in Mexico last year. Choir officials announced on Feb. 21, that the next part of the tour will happen Sept. 5-12 in Florida and Georgia in the southeastern United States.
For the 2023 tour stop in Mexico City, Mexico, more than 500,000 people watched the livestream during the concert in the National Auditorium and the days following the concert when the livestream was available online.
President Clayton said the choir and orchestra were able to change the way they secured the music licenses to allow the YouTube video to remain online for a year.
“In some ways, the most important part of what happens with this tour is what happens starting [the day after the livestream] with members and missionaries and friends of the Church enjoying the music and helping other people learn to enjoy it,” President Clayton said.
This stop of the choir and orchestra’s “Hope” tour is their debut visit to the Philippines. In addition to the two concerts at the SM Mall of Asia Arena, the choir and orchestra performed a sacred music concert at the University of Santo Tomas and for a group of invited guests at the Shangri-la Hotel: the Fort. Elder Neil L. Andersen of the Quorum of The Twelve Apostles and his wife, Sister Kathy Andersen, attended those two concerts and spoke in the choir and orchestra’s sacrament meeting as they completed a nine-day ministry in the country.
Watch party in Pasay City
For the past two months, the missionaries have been inviting people to come to the concert and offered to help those interested in tickets get to the arena.
“People we just met three hours ago trust us enough to come here and come watch,” said Sister Halley Dastrup, of Meridian, Idaho, who is serving in the Philippines Manila Mission.
The SM Mall of Asia Arena concert featured 17 songs, plus a trio of encores. At the meetinghouse, the attendees cheered when the choir and orchestra sang two Filipino songs — “Hawak Kamay”(or “Holding Hands”) during the program and “Bahay Kubo,” a Filipino folk song, as an encore.
The concert had the format of one of the Tabernacle Choir’s Christmas concerts, with guest artists and story.
Youth and young adults from the metro Manila area narrated the biblical stories of Jesus Christ calming the waves and walking on water and also testified of the Savior and how faith can help navigate life’s storms. As the story unfolded, the choir sang associate director Ryan Murphy’s arrangement of “Hawak Kamay.”
James Diaz, of the Manila 2nd Ward, Pasay Philippines Stake, liked the message the youth and young adults shared as he said he could see himself in the story — especially in the apostle Peter who walked out to the Savior and doubted, falling into the water.
“Like they said, Jesus Christ is our Savior and we are not alone,” Diaz said.
For Rizby Gerardo, of the Pasay 4th Ward, hearing the Filipino songs was a highlight.
He also saw the concert in-person the night before.
“I love how they sang the Filipino songs,” he said of “Hawak Kamay”(or “Holding Hands”) and “Bahay Kubo.”
Sister Melenau Kalu, a missionary from Tonga, said, “It was so beautiful.”
During the concert, she looked around at the others gathered, including children who were singing along with the choir.
“Looking at others enjoying the concert and feeling the hope, the love, that Jesus Christ has everyone, it was amazing. … We also felt it,” Sister Kalu said.
Sister Dastrup said she looked around during the Filipino songs to see others singing, too.
“It was so fun to look around and see them singing along … with the Tabernacle Choir,” Sister Dastrup said, adding that she thought the concert was “incredible.”
“I love the Filipino culture and I felt like I re-fell in love with it again just by watching,” she added.
Pasay Philippines Stake President Bryan Borela estimated that half of those at the meetinghouse that night were at the concert in-person the prior evening. As the closest meetinghouse to the arena, they had also been prepared to host any overflow.
“The feeling [of hearing the choir] is still the same — it’s still overwhelming, it gives us goosebumps. It’s really an enjoyable experience whether in the Mall of Asia, or livestreaming here,” President Borela said.
The concert was also available at several movie theaters in the Metro Manila area.
Alfredo and Grace Ardon, of the Antipolo Philippines Stake, came with their children and spouses and four young grandchildren, as children younger than seven years old were not allowed in the arena. The Ardons had watched their grandchildren the night before so that their children and spouses could go to the concert in-person.
Grace Ardon said the choir had “angel voices.”
“Now that I’ve heard them in-person, I want to hear them in the Tabernacle,” she said with a smile.
Tabernacle Choir members sing at the Philippine Senate
Two dozen Tabernacle Choir members sang for the Philippine Senate at the invitation of Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri on Wednesday, Feb. 28, at the GSIS Building. It’s the first time a choir outside of Asia has performed there. The choir sang “Awake and Arise, All Ye Children of Light,” “Bahay Kubo” and “God Be with You Till We Meet Again,” which was streamed live nationally across the Philippines on the Senate’s YouTube channel, reported ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
The singers included Leo Marcelo, a Philippine native, and global performers Sundae Mae Indino and Ronald Baa, who traveled to Salt Lake City to perform at the general conference for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in April 2023.
There are 24 seats in the Philippines Senate and they include a combination of seasoned and younger senators with representation from all Philippine demographics, ChurchofJesusChrist.org reported.
Prior to the choir singing, Zubiri met with Church leaders including Tabernacle Choir President Michael O. Leavitt; Elder Carlos G. Revillo Jr., General Authority Seventy and second counselor in the Church’s Philippines Area presidency; and Elder George Kenneth Lee, Area Seventy.
“The leaders of our Church were able to get acquainted with them, which is important. Having a relationship with government helps, and that’s one of the things that will have come from this historic trip by the Tabernacle Choir to the Philippines,” said President Leavitt.
