I am taking the liberty to express my dissatisfaction, sadness, grief, and frustration at the resignation tonight of the music director of the Tabernacle Choir, Dr. Craig Jessop. Evan won't really care about this later on, but hey, lets be real here, technology will be such that this will be archaic and maybe not even available when he is ready - sorry to be so cynical.
Anyway, Dr. Jessop was mysteriously missing from Sunday's broadcast and I mentioned to my family how unusual that was. I wondered if he was ill or had to leave out of town on an emergency, etc. After tonight's rehearsal, which was again mysteriously conducted by Dr. Wilberg instead of Dr. Jessop, he came to the end of the rehearsal and acknowledged that he had to miss Sunday, but didn't give a reason, and then read his letter of resignation as music director of the choir. He gave the lame reasoning of "wanting to spend more time with his family", but that in actuality is code for "I was forced out" or "sick" or something very serious. Why couldn't he have told us the real reason. Is it because of the new First Presidency? Did President Monson have a problem with Dr Jessop and the first chance he got he fired him? I do not want to think of our prophet doing something like that. Is he or his wife very ill? Why would someone want to leave the choir? Isn't it the ultimate in jobs for a choral conductor? What could be better than this? Even being director of music at a university couldn't be better. If it was, then Dr. Wilberg would have gone back to BYU. I feel like he died. All the choir members were stunned - in total shock. No one expected this at all. He is only 57 years old. I thought he would be conducting the choir until 62 years old at least. I just hope it isn't something that made him ineligible to be conductor anymore (like leaving the Church or something like that.) Dr. Jessop is really one of the most incredible men I have ever met. He has an incredible spirit about him - it (his spirit) is constantly testifying the divinity of our Savior. You just have to look at him and know that the Gospel of Christ is true. He had so much strength and energy. When things would get bad, I knew that he would petition the Lord to help us and we would always make it through. He never showed his personal exhaustion during a long, stressful rehearsal. He also knew how to "reprove betimes with sharpness...and then show forth afterwards an increase of love". Anyway, I will probably delete this post when I have processed this some more, but until then, I will try to figure out how to feel about this.
