Mack Wilberg

Mack Wilberg (born in 1955 in Orangeville, Utah) is a composer, arranger, conductor, choral clinician and the current music director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. He was the associate director of the choir and music director of the Temple Square Chorale for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from May 1999 until his appointment as director on March 28, 2008.

Biography

Wilberg was raised in Castle Dale, Utah, and served an LDS mission in South Korea where he was part of New Horizons, a vocal group made up of LDS missionaries.

Wilberg attended Brigham Young University (BYU) after finishing his missionary service, and earned a bachelor's degree in music in 1979. He concentrated on piano and composition. He then earned a master's degree and a PhD in music from the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California.

He is a former professor of music at BYU, where he directed the Men's Chorus and Concert Choir. At BYU he was a member of the American Piano Quartet which included Paul Pollei, himself, and different other pianist at different times (Massimiliano Frani, Del Parkinson, Ronald Staheli, and Douglas Humphreys). This group toured throughout the world and commissioned many original works. Wilberg created many of their arrangements himself. His compositions and arrangements are performed and recorded by choral organizations throughout the world. In addition to the many compositions he has written for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, his works have been performed by such artists as Renée Fleming, Frederica von Stade, Bryn Terfel, the King’s Singers, Audra McDonald, David Archuleta, Natalie Cole, Brian Stokes Mitchell and narrators Walter Cronkite and Claire Bloom.

Seven Joys of the Virgin

The Seven Joys of the Virgin (or of Mary, the Mother of Jesus) is a popular devotion to events of the life of the Virgin Mary, arising from a trope of medieval devotional literature and art.

The Seven Joys were frequently depicted in medieval devotional literature and art. The seven joys are usually listed as:

Alternative choices were made and might include the Visitation and the Finding in the Temple, as in the Franciscan Crown form of Rosary, which uses the Seven Joys, but omits the Ascension and Pentecost. Depiction in art of the Assumption of Mary may replace or be combined with the Coronation, especially from the 15th century onwards; by the 17th century it is the norm. As with other sets of scenes, the different practical implications of depictions in different media such as painting, ivory miniature carving, liturgical drama and music led to different conventions by medium, as well as other factors such as geography and the influence of different religious orders. There is a matching set of seven Sorrows of the Virgin; both sets influenced the selection of scenes in depictions of the Life of the Virgin.