A new museum art exhibit, “Seek My Face”, was attended by the First Presidency and General Authorities of the LDS church, with President Monson cutting the ribbon. These new and contemporary works share insight into subjects that depict the life and teachings of the Savior. Those attending told us that the music of the Oswald Goeckeritz Duo at this private event was also one of the highlights of the evening at the LDS Museum of Church History and Art!

The annual Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchesta at Temple Square Christmas concerts featured David Archuleta and Michael York this year.  We couldn’t pass up the opportunity to pose for another photo with our orchestra friends and conductor Mack Wilberg

The Bells on Temple Square Performance on November 19, 2010–what a great evening of music! The attendance was beyond seating capacity. Just prior to the performance, the tabernacle was completely full with large numbers still waiting to come in. What to do? Those wonderful ushers quickly redirected the waiting crowds and seated them in the choir seats! Joined by our friend Bonnie Schroeder, Tamara Oswald and I accompanied the BOTS and performed our own trio works. Suo Gan, an arrangement by Sam Cardon for our Chanson CD, was an audience favorite. They also had a fun laugh and enjoyed our trio’s Christmas rendition of Jingle Bells, which not only included some amazing flute, harp, and oboe variations, but some fancy foot tapping!

In addition to our performance and recording schedule, the Oswald Goeckeritz Duo is passionate about inspiring and encouraging children to be involved in the arts. We believe the influence of musical creation is a powerful tool, and want to help children discover it’s beauty, inspiration and worth as they use it in their lives. Thus, the Tunes & Tales Trio was created to provide musical education programs for schools as part of Arts in Education. Joined by our friend Julie Aamodt, viola, the Tunes & Tales Trio will perform at Utah schools throughout the 2010 – 2011 school year.

It is amazing how the museum is able to transform the main art gallery to accommodate such a large audience, while keeping the intimate feeling of visiting a friend’s home for a private musical event.

Evening at the Museum
September 17, 2010
Performances at 6:30 and 7:30 pm
LDS Church History Museum
45 North West Temple
Salt Lake City, UT
www.lds.org/events
www.deseretnews.com/Mormon-Times
The Evening at the Museum series will continue this Autumn with Gently Raise the Sacred Strain to complement a current exhibit at the LDS Church History Museum, The Salt Lake Tabernacle: Gathering the Saints Under One Roof. Tamara and Jeannine will perform in the museum’s main art gallery at 6:30 and 7:30 pm, and will also perform with a small choral group of former Mormon Tabernacle Choir members following their performance. Award-winning author and screenwriter Heidi Swinton will give a lecture at 6:30 in the Museum auditorium. This event is free and open to the public. Tickets are not required for the performances, however tickets are required for the Heidi Swinton lecture.

Tamara and Jeannine’s new CD, Chanson, is available in the museum’s giftshop, and will be sold at a discount that evening.

Two nights, full houses, standing ovations, new friends, laughter, all at a great acoustical hall. Thank you, thank you, for your attendance and wonderful support of our music. It was a pleasure to meet many of you after the concerts. We were overwhelmed by your enthusiastic support of our music and genuinely humbled as you shared your individual experiences of how our music and spoken presentations had uplifted, inspired, entertained, and comforted you. We met many new friends from around the world and across the United States.

Unknown to us months in advance while Tamara and I were selecting the music for our concerts, a family from Uruguay were making travel arrangements to bring their daughter to BYU. After hearing that we would be performing at BYU Education Week, they changed their travel plans so that they could arrive a day early and attend our concert. As they were seated at our concert and started to read the program, to their amazement and delight, they discovered that we would be performing two of Piazzolla’s Tangos from Argentina, which is where the mother is from.

Determining the musical selections for a concert is no easy task. We spend countless hours researching, studying and pondering to create a musical program. Of course the musical pieces have to be musically pleasing and entertaining, but at a deeper level they have to fit together to create an overall musical experience, which complements the speaking portions of the concert, is specific to the audience, and bring value to the listener at a personal level. We felt very blessed to learn that the gentle impression we had to include these songs in our program had such a wonderful reason why.

On August 17 and 18, 2010 Tamara Oswald and Jeannine Goeckeritz performed two evening concerts entitled A Joyful Evening for BYU Education Week in the Madsen Recital Hall of the Harris Fine Arts Building on the BYU campus. BYU Education Week is an amazing event. Thank you to all the staff and stage crew for their help in making this A Joyful Evening!

The Oswald Goeckeritz Duo performed at the joint annual conference of the Utah Association of Financial Services and the National Association of Industrial Bankers on August 19, 2010. The conference was held at the Zermott Resort in beautiful Midway, Utah. We enjoyed this opportunity to perform for national and state government leaders and financial executives from around the United States.