Daniel Kerr, the chair of the Music Department at Brigham Young University–Idaho, will perform in the Tabernacle Organ Virtuoso Performance Series on Friday, Aug. 18, at 7:30 p.m. in the Salt Lake Tabernacle. The event is free and no tickets are required. 

His concert will include “Jesus Christus, unser Heiland,” by Franz Tunder, “Fantasia and Fugue in G Minor, BWV 542,” by Johann Sebastian Bach, and “Psalm-Preludes, set 2, no. 3,” by Herbert Howells, among other notable works, according to the announcement from The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square.

How to watch in-person or online

The concerts are free and open to everyone 8 years and older. No tickets are required. Entry to the Tabernacle is accessed through the gates on West Temple Street. Due to construction on Temple Square, please review current access on the map. 

This concert will also be streamed live on the choir’s YouTube channel at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 18, at 7:30 p.m. After the performance ends, the video will be available on-demand.

The Tabernacle Organ Virtuoso Performance Series

This is the third of four virtuoso concerts scheduled for this year. James O’Donnell, professor in the practice of organ at Yale School of Music and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music in New Haven, Connecticut, and has had tenures at the Westminster Abbey and Westminster Cathedral, both in London, England, performed in May. Viktor Billa, Ukrainian organist and soloist who is an organist at Trinity United Methodist Church in Tallahassee, Florida, performed in February. 

The final concert in the series will feature Tabernacle organist Brian Mathias on Nov. 3. Each will be in the Salt Lake Tabernacle at 7:30 p.m. on Fridays, according to the schedule on the Tabernacle Choir’s website.

The Tabernacle Organ Virtuoso Performance Series started in 2022 and was created to showcase the Tabernacle organ and world-renowned organists.

The series began with concerts by James Higdon, an organist from the University of Kansas; Gabriele Terrone, the Cathedral of the Madeline’s organist and assistant director of music; and Andrew Unsworth, who has been a Tabernacle organist since 2007. 

The concerts with O’Donnell, Billa, Terrone and Unsworth are available for on-demand viewing on the choir’s YouTube channel. (See the videos below.)

About the Tabernacle organ

The Tabernacle pipe organ has five manuals or keyboards, and 206 ranks of organ pipes and is among the world’s largest instruments. Its golden pipes are made from wood staves fashioned from Utah timber and still add to the sound of the famous instrument today. 

There are also free daily organ concerts at noon in the Tabernacle. Also, the Tabernacle organists have a weekly Piping Up: Organ Concerts at Temple Square series that’s streamed on Wednesday on the Tabernacle Choir’s YouTube channel and website at thetabernaclechoir.org and also on Broadcasts.ChurchofJesusChrist.org.

About Daniel Kerr

Kerr also directs the organ studies program and coordinates the BYU–Idaho Hymn Festival, which commissions new hymn texts and tunes each year. Kerr earned bachelor’s, master’s, and doctor of musical arts degrees from the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music. Previously, he taught at USC and at California State University, Los Angeles and was organist and handbell choir director at Pasadena Presbyterian Church, according to the The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square’s announcement.

He has performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra as well as at various conventions of the American Guild of Organists during the 2004 National Convention, 2011 Northwest Regional Convention, and 2017 West Regional Convention. He was also a soloist for the 2008 Eccles Organ Festival at Salt Lake’s Cathedral of the Madeleine and is a regular guest recitalist on the organs of Temple Square.

Past concerts in the Tabernacle Organ Virtuoso Performance Series

The concerts with O’Donnell, Billa, Terrone and Unsworth are available for on-demand viewing on the choir’s YouTube channel.