While Utah prepares itself for February's visitors from all over the globe, younger international visitors are filling the state this week.
Children's choirs from countries around the world are in Utah this week to celebrate goodwill and cultural understanding during the Voices of Friendship International Invitational Children's Choir Festival.
The festival runs all week, culminating in a final concert in the LDS Conference Center Saturday night, the first public event to be held in that venue that is not an LDS Church program.
Top children's choirs from Lithuania, Estonia, Austria, Trinidad and Tobago, Israel, the Netherlands, Korea, Denmark, Slovakia, Russia and Romania are all scheduled to participate.
At the final concert, the choirs and Utah children in the audience will all sing together "We Are the Children of the World." The song was written by local composer Kay Goodson especially for this event.
The Voices of Friendship Festival is the brainchild of 26-year-old Utahn Jana Farr, who, in 1999, came up with the idea to host children's choirs from all over the world here in Utah.
"Children are so full of heart and possess such a goodness, (the festival) seemed like it would be wonderful," Farr said. "We often let differences become barriers. We should be appreciating each other and focusing on what we have in common."
Farr decided to act on her hosting-choirs idea and began calling around to enlist help. Beyond the local volunteers she was able to round up, Farr contacted cultural counselors, embassies and ambassadors from around the world to nominate choirs from their respective countries to participate. The festival started with modest hopes, Farr said, but has had to keep expanding.
The choirs will travel throughout the week, visiting and singing at numerous schools, churches and other community centers from Logan to Gunnison. Some schools are using the choirs' visit and the upcoming Olympics as ways to help students learn more about other countries.
At Central Elementary in Pleasant Grove, there has been instruction about Austria, whose choir — Youth Choir Antiesenhofen — it will host this week. To prepare, the school has learned the Austrian national anthem, phrases in German and will host a Q&A between its students and the choir.
In Alpine, Darla Masterson, who is a member of a Friends of Denmark, a group that is helping to host the Aarhus School of Denmark choir, said big plans have been made for the visiting choir. Besides housing choir members, there are plans to show them around the area, and to hold a reception and a meeting with Alpine's mayor in their honor.
Many of the choirs that have been chosen to participate have gained wide recognition in their home countries, Farr said. One such visiting choir is the prestigious Azuoliukas of Lithuania, which has won every national competition since 1960. The choir was invited to perform in Washington, D.C., in 1976, but the government at the time declined. This trip marks the first time the choir has come to perform in the United States.
Though some choirs did pull out after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Farr said the majority had a strong desire to press forward. "I got responses from choirs all over within an hour (of the attacks)," Farr said. "It was touching to get first-hand concern from all over, and most said it's all the more reason to come for Voices of Friendship."
The final concert for Voices of Friendship will be held Saturday, Oct. 20, at 7:30 p.m. in the LDS Conference Center at 60 W. North Temple. Tickets are $2 and can be purchased at the Conference Center, online at www.voicesoffriendship.orgor by calling 240-0080.
E-MAIL: pthunell@desnews.com