'Fall Festival Of Faith' Coming To Palm Desert

PALM DESERT, CA - From Hope Lutheran Church: On Sunday, October 29, Hope Lutheran Church, 45900 Portola Avenue, in Palm Desert, will host the Fall Festival of Faith commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. The service begins at 6 p.m.

The Festival Choir, comprised of singers from Hope Lutheran Church – Palm Desert, Menlo Church – Menlo Park, Palm Desert Community Presbyterian Church – Palm Desert, St. John’s Lutheran Church – Palm Desert, St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church – Palm Desert, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – Palm Desert, and The Church of St. Paul in the Desert – Palm Springs, will be conducted by Dr.Mack Wilberg accompanied by Frederick Swann.

Senior Pastor Derek Fossey cordially invites the public to attend. All are welcome.

This event is being co-sponsored with The Mark Thallander Foundation, Palm Springs.

A free-will offering will be received.

FESTIVAL CONDUCTOR

Mack Wilberg was appointed Music Director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on March 28, 2008, having served as Associate Music Director of the Choir since May 1999. Dr. Wilberg is responsible for all musical and creative aspects of the Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square in rehearsals, concerts, tours, and recordings, as well as the weekly broadcast of Music and the Spoken Word.

He is a former Professor of Music at Brigham Young University and is active as a composer, arranger, guest conductor, and clinician throughout the United States and abroad. His compositions and arrangements, currently published exclusively by Oxford University Press, are performed and recorded by choral organizations throughout the world. Dr. Wilberg received his bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University and his master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Southern California.

He and his wife, Rebecca, are the parents of four children and have one granddaughter.

FESTIVAL ORGANIST

Frederick Swann is past National President (2002-2008) of the American Guild of Organists. He is Organist Emeritus of the Crystal Cathedral and of the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles, and is presently Organ Artist-in-residence at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church in Palm Desert, California. Since 2007, Mr. Swann has been University Organist and Artist Teacher of Organ at the University of Redlands.

From 1952 through 1982 he was associated with the music ministry of the Riverside Church in New York City, succeeding Virgil Fox as organist in 1957 and becoming Director of Music and Organist in 1967. From 1982-1998 he was Director of Music and Organist of the Crystal Cathedral and became Organist-in-Residence at the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles (1998-2001).

Mr. Swann holds degrees from Northwestern University and the School of Sacred Music at Union Theological Seminary in New York, each granted "with distinction". In addition to his prominent church positions, he was for ten years Chair of the Organ Department at the Manhattan School of Music and served on the faculties of Teacher’s College of Columbia University, and the School of Sacred Music at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. In 2015 Mr. Swann was designated a Fellow, honoris causa by the Royal Canadian College of Organists.

For more than forty years he was a major artist represented by Karen McFarlane Artists, and has performed nearly 3,000 recitals in all 50 of the United States and eleven foreign countries. In 2004 he was selected by the Los Angeles Philharmonic to perform the inaugural solo organ recital on the spectacular new organ in The Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Prior to that he played inaugural recitals on the organs in Orchestra Hall, Chicago, and Davies Hall in San Francisco. In June of 2008 Mr. Swann performed two Preview Recitals on the William J. Gillepsie Concert Organ in the Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, and recorded the first CD on the new Fisk instrument – one of several dozen recordings made during his career.

Image via Hope Lutheran Church