Tabernacle Choir Director, Mack Wilberg, in concert with the
Sanctuary Choir of Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church
GREAT HYMNS OF FAITH
A PHPC 75th Anniversary Concert
Sunday, February 4, 2024, 7 PM
Doors open at 6:15 PM. No Tickets Required.
Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church of Dallas, Texas welcomes Mack Wilberg, the conductor of the famed Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square in Salt Lake City as a featured guest composer/conductor with the church’s 150-voice Sanctuary Choir. A concert, accompanied by full professional orchestra is scheduled for Sunday, February 4, 2024 at 7 PM in the Sanctuary of Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church, 9800 Preston Road, Dallas, Texas.
The concert will feature Mack Wilberg conducting the choir and orchestra in nine of his most beloved hymn settings for choir and orchestra including such favorites as “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling,” “Amazing Grace” and “It Is Well with My Soul.”
There will also be three world premieres of commissions of new hymn settings for choir and orchestra: “Holy! Holy! Holy!” by British composer Will Todd; “To God Be the Glory” by Tabernacle Choir Associate Conductor Ryan Murphy and “Come, O Thou Traveler Unknown” by Mack Wilberg.
Two of Wilberg’s arrangements feature bagpipes as a part of the orchestration: “Amazing Grace” and the new “Come, O Thou Traveler Unknown”. Playing will be Don Shannon, Pipe Major, and Cheryl Newman, both of the North Texas Caledonian Pipes and Drums.
About Mack Wilberg:
Wilberg began his career at BYU as a professor of music. Wilberg was a professor of music at BYU from 1984 to 1999, where he directed the Men’s Chorus and Concert Choir. At BYU, he was a member of the American Piano Quartet, which toured internationally and commissioned many original works, with Wilberg creating many of its arrangements himself.
He was the associate director of the Tabernacle Choir and music director of the Chorale at Temple Square from May 1999 until his appointment as the Choir’s director on March 28, 2008. Wilberg is a noted composer and arranger, and his works are published by Oxford University Press, including his major work, Requiem. His arrangements have been performed at the funerals for United States presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush.
Wilberg’s numerous choral compositions and arrangements are performed and recorded by choral organizations throughout the world. For many of the works he has written/arranged for the Choir, public performances have involved guests artists invited by the Choir, including Renée Fleming, Frederica von Stade, Bryn Terfel, the King’s Singers, Audra McDonald, David Archuleta, Natalie Cole, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Kristin Chenoweth, Madeleine Albright, Walter Cronkite, and Claire Bloom. In 2006, he was awarded the Brock Commission from the American Choral Directors Association.
Wilberg plans and conducts a weekly televised performance of Music & the Spoken Word.
About the Sanctuary Choir:
The Sanctuary Choir of Preston Hollow Presbyterian, Dallas, Texas, is the church’s flagship music ensemble. Major successes during the last decade have included an invitation to the 2020 National ACDA Convention, a performance of the Verdi REQUIEM at Durham Cathedral in the UK under the direction of Paul Leddington Wright, and three PBS Christmas television productions, the most recent one with John Rutter as special guest composer/conductor.
The choir has received three separate prestigious invitations to appear as Andrea Bocelli’s Opera Chorus in sold-out performances in the 20,000-seat American Airlines Center in Dallas.
The Sanctuary Choir is conducted by Artistic Director-in-Residence Steven Jobman, who has led the music ministry of Preston Hollow since 2015. Made up of approximately 150 amateur and professional musicians, the Sanctuary Choir supports worship during traditional services each week and performs other concerts at PHPC and throughout the community during the year. Preston Hollow regularly commissions anthems and major works for the choir. Through these commissions, Preston Hollow and its staff have facilitated major contributions to the repertoire of sacred music. Recent collaborations have included John Rutter, Mack Wilberg, Ryan Murphy, Bob Chilcott, Ola Gjeilo, Gary Fry, and Will Todd.
Though the music ministry is proud of its accomplishments and contributions, it continues to be guided by its chief principal: Soli Deo gloria. (To God alone be the glory.)
About Steve Jobman:
Steven Jobman was called to be the Director of Music of Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church in July of 2015 and has served as its Artistic Director-in-Residence since fall of 2022. Steve previously served First Presbyterian Church of Galesburg, Illinois (8 years) and First Presbyterian Church of Davenport, Iowa (25 years.) He was the executive producer of two PBS tapings of First Presbyterian Davenport’s Christmas concerts, which were then aired nationally in all 50 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands. He was also Executive Producer of three PBS specials from Preston Hollow.
He has been an innovator and driving force in sacred music at every stop in his career. Some of the composers he collaborated with prior to his tenure at Preston Hollow include Mack Wilberg, Howard Helvey, Gary Fry, Hank Beebe, Robert Leaf, Andrew Carter, Joel Raney, and Gilbert M. Martin.
At Preston Hollow Presbyterian, Steve has prepared the choir to sing both the Vaughan Williams DONA NOBIS PACEM and the Verdi REQUIEM. The choir was also honored to be selected on three different occasions as the opera chorus with Andrea Bocelli at the American Airlines Center for audiences of 20,000. Steve holds degrees from the University of Nebraska (Bachelor of Music in Education, Master of Music in Organ Performance and Choral Conducting/Voice).
About Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church:
Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church is an inclusive Presbyterian USA church located at 9800 Preston Rd. Dallas, TX, 75230, that believes in “Trusting that all belong to God, living like we belong to one another.”