– Christmas Special Features Many of the Season’s Best-Loved Songs –

Songs you’ll never forget, the film you’ve never seen and a story that’s never been told. In August 1967, in the wake of the extraordinary impact of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles made a film. It was seen in the U.K. by a huge audience, at 8:35pm on BBC One on Britain’s Boxing Day…and all hell broke loose.

Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actress Jane Seymour and Grammy Award-winning baritone Nathan Gunn join the renowned Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square in a magnificent Christmas special featuring some of the season’s best-loved songs.

CHRISTMAS WITH THE MORMON TABERNACLE CHOIR FEATURING JANE SEYMOUR AND NATHAN GUNN premieres Sunday, December 16, 2012, 7:00-8:00 p.m. on WTVP-HD, with additional broadcasts on Friday, December 21, and on Monday, Christmas Eve, December 24, both from 8:00-9:00 p.m. The program, filmed last December over four concerts in the Conference Center at Temple Square in Salt Lake City, is a majestic performance featuring the Bells on Temple Square, a stage decorated as a medieval castle, dancers in regal costumes, fanfare trumpets and falling snow.

CHRISTMAS WITH THE MORMON TABERNACLE CHOIR opens with the Choir, Orchestra and Bells joined by Jane Seymour in “Sing Forth This Day.” Also on the program are “And God Said: The Day Shall Dawn,” from King David, as well as holiday classics such as “Deck the Hall” with the Choir and Orchestra; “In dulci jubilo,” “Twas the Night before Christmas” and “Silent Night” with Nathan Gunn accompanied by the Orchestra and Choir.

Seymour narrates “Good King Wenceslas,” arranged by Choir Music Director Mack Wilberg for Choir, Orchestra and Bells. She also narrates the story of the birth of Christ from Luke 2. The concert closes with “Angels, From the Realms of Glory,” the traditional French carol arranged by Wilberg for Choir, Orchestra and Bells with Nathan Gunn as featured soloist.

Nathan Gunn has made a reputation as one of the most exciting and in-demand baritones of the day. He has appeared in internationally renowned opera houses such as the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Paris Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, Glyndebourne Opera Festival, Theater an der Wien, Teatro Real in Madrid, and the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels.

Also a distinguished concert performer, Gunn has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Münchner Rundfunkorchster, and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra.

Decorated English actress Jane Seymour has proven her talents in virtually every medium: the Broadway stage, motion pictures and television. Her stellar acting career has been marked with honors and recognitions, including Golden Globes for “East of Eden” (1981) and “Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman” (1993) and a 1988 Emmy Award for “Onassis: The Richest Man in the World.”

Her acting and humanitarian work have earned her honors on both sides of the Atlantic. In 2000, she was the recipient of the Officer of the British Empire (OBE), bestowed by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace, and in 2010 she received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in New York.

The 360-voice Mormon Tabernacle Choir was organized in 1847, shortly after the Mormon pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley. The Choir is well known for its recordings, which include two platinum and five gold albums, and the Grammy Award-winning rendition of “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” The Choir has performed with some of the world’s great orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, and it now performs regularly with the Orchestra at Temple Square, a 110-member all-volunteer symphony, formed in 1999. The Choir has performed in the great concert halls of Europe, Mexico, Brazil, Canada, Japan, Australia, Israel, Russia and the United States.

This year’s CHRISTMAS WITH THE MORMON TABERNACLE CHOIR special is the ninth annual performance produced by KUED Salt Lake City for national broadcast on PBS.

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Christmas with the Mormon Tabernacle featuring Jane Seymour and Nathan Gunn is funded in part by Ronald C. and Kaye Gunnell, the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation, The J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation, the Cleone Peterson Eccles Endowment Fund and the contributing members of KUED.

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