Musical Missionaries
In this post, archivist Michelle Sayers tells the story of missionary musical groups using research from the Church History Library’s collections.
Knocking on doors, asking for member referrals, and street contacting have not always been the primary ways missionaries have preached the gospel. From the 1930s to the 1970s, missionary musical groups were organized and performed as a way of teaching and spreading the gospel beyond simply proselytizing. The groups were based all over the world: Korea, France, South Africa, Britain, Argentina, and the United States. Members of these groups were called and set apart as full-time missionaries, and their missionary work was to perform concerts and give lectures around their missions. Their days were spent advertising and promoting their performances by hanging up posters, distributing handbills, and even advertising on the radio. In the evenings, they provided local communities with melodious entertainment.
These musical groups took many different forms. The Millennial Chorus (1936–39) in the British Mission was a choir of between 15 and 18 elders. The Mormonaires (1951–52) in the North Central States Mission “included a Dance Band, Chorus, Quartet, and Instrumental and Vocal Soloists.”1 The Traveling Elders (1947–51) in the Argentine Mission were both a singing group and a basketball team. They traveled together around Argentina with one half playing basketball against local teams and the other singing at evening gatherings. The Family Band in the South Africa Mission (1972) was a quartet, performing songs, comedy acts, and poetry in a “variety show” fashion for their audiences.
Mormon Moderns, Uruguayan Mission, Le Quatuor Mormon, French Mission
The musical groups performed at many different venues and events, and often the concerts also featured a “lecture” on the gospel. The missionaries performed at carnivals, club gatherings, schools, open-air concerts, and occasionally on the radio. The Millennial Chorus performed open-air concerts in Hyde Park and then held a lecture. The elders recalled “how their singing would assemble the wandering Londoners, and how their speaking would then lose them.”2
While many of the musical groups were made up solely of elders, some groups also included sisters, senior missionaries, and members of the local community. In the Swedish Mission, there were two co-ed musical groups: an instrumental group and another group called the Mormonaires. In South Korea, the group New Horizons (1974), made up of 6 elders, routinely performed with the mission-sponsored Tender Apples Choir, a group of 18 orphaned girls living in a girls’ home run by a Korean Church member, Whang Keun-Ok.
The musical groups had an impact on the reception, understanding, and awareness of the Church in countries across the world. In Sweden, newspapers printed comments such as “If these young people are actually sincerely religious, their religion must be a bright and happy one!”3 In South Africa, the Eastern Province Herald reported that “a bright and cheerful group of young Americans held completely their audience during a ‘family evening’ in the City Hall.”4 In France, the group Le Quatuor Mormon received “very complimentary write-ups in … the local papers.”5 And in Argentina, a headline announced, “Mormon Missionary Quartet Shine at A[merican] W[omen’s] C[lub] Morning Musical.”6
Did preaching through concerts and lectures bring people into the Church? While most of the Church History Library’s records pertaining to these groups detail the number of concerts, radio broadcasts, and tracts distributed, none give any indication of whether their performances led to listeners joining the Church. One singular instance is recorded regarding the Millennial Chorus: In Belfast, Ireland, in 1937, the choir spent three weeks promoting and performing concerts and lectures, after which 12 people requested baptism. But beyond positive newspaper reviews and perhaps acceptance into otherwise closed communities, the impact may have affected the missionaries who performed more than the people who attended.
The Millennial Chorus, British Mission
That impact and the music didn’t end for some when they returned from their missions. When World War II broke out in Europe in 1939, the missionaries in the British Mission were sent elsewhere. But for those who resided in Salt Lake City, Utah, the Millennial Chorus “[carried] on the spirit of the Mission by singing in Wards of the Church from Provo to Logan.”7 In 1946, 10 years after its original formation, the choir “completed a 13 week schedule of singing from the Tabernacle on the Sunday Evening Church Service.”8 And Michael McLean, a member of The Family Band in South Africa, went on to become a composer. His many albums include The Forgotten Carols.
The Church relied on missionary musical groups throughout the world to spread the message of the gospel in their unique ways. You can learn about many of them by searching the Church History Library records.