You can take the Choir Festival out of the Great Auditorium, but you can’t take the Festival out of the hearts and minds of those who look forward to it each summer.   This summer the CMA led by President Michael Badger faced adversity and came up with a brilliant and brave program.

Of course, it was scaled down in size and time (one hour) but the glorious music was heard on big screens and with sound systems in the Auditorium, the Tabernacle, on all grassy areas surrounding the GA, and then out of all kinds of digital devices  like my iPad in our dining room.

The 100 people who were able to enter the Great Auditorium looked lost in there, but the CMA accepted the ridiculous rulings and did a wonderful job in spreading the joy.  I heard some of it in and around the Auditorium. There were those in lawn chairs around the tents, some peering into the doors, and others on benches, blankets and chairs in Auditorium Park.

The sound quality was quite good considering the audio issues.

Congratulations to Dr. Jason Tramm, and all participants including conductors, soloists, choir members and 7 instrumentalists.  We must single out the marvelous OG stars:  Dr. Gordon Turk,  Dr. Cindy Bell, The GA quartet. (Ronald Naldi, Monica Ziegler, Allison Gish, Justin Beck.) And finally bravo to the technical wizards who harnessed all of Edison’s 1000 patents to bring this about.

–Paul Goldfinger, Editor  Blogfinger.net.