Weeks of rehearsal at the Uintah Basin Orchestra and Chorus will culminate in the organization’s highest profile concert yet. This sold-out event will feature arrangements and original compositions by Mack Wilberg with guest conductor Craig Jessop at the helm.
Jessop is the former conductor of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and current music director and conductor of the American Festival Chorus and Orchestra in Logan. Both he and Wilberg grew up in rural Utah, Millville and Castledale respectively, and he said he thought it would be great to have an all-Utah concert in Vernal.
“You do not have to come from a large metropolitan area to achieve your dreams or be successful in any area,” Jessop said. “Here are two country-Utah boys coming to Vernal with their resources, doing this, I think very, very exciting concert.”
One of his mentors, Robert Shaw, was known to use many metaphors, one of which has stuck with Jessop to this day.
“His metaphor was a garden, ‘You grow the best vegetables in your own back yard.’ In other words, if you want a cultural climate, a cultural community, you have to build it yourself,” Jessop said. “You can bring people in for a short period of time and then they leave, but you have to really build. That is what Boyd Edwards and this organization are doing. They’re taking their talent, their native talent, and building a really wonderful gift for their community.”
“I don’t think anyone could have anticipated the need that this organization has filled in the Uintah Basin community,” said Boyd Edwards, chair of the Uintah Basin Orchestra and Chorus Board of Directors. “We found that there were so many members of the community who had moved here without much hope of meaningful musical opportunities, and having a high-quality musical experience has just been so meaningful to many of the performers.”
The positive effects have also spread beyond the performers, he said. The community has developed a deep pride in the quality of the ensemble, which attracts such high-caliber conductors.
“It’s going to be a historic event in the Uintah Basin, there’s no doubt about that,” Edwards said.
For more information about the concert, click here.