Over a decade ago, some friends got together to make music. They called it “an experiment in a new way to produce music visually.”[1] It started out small but has now grown in unexpected ways as these friends have performed all over the world together, and their YouTube videos have over two billion views and millions of subscribers. These friends are known as the Piano Guys, and their music, also in unexpected ways, mixes modern and classical music in what could be described as a beautiful conversation between a piano and a cello.
Steven: In our first video, we didn’t really know what we were doing, but we just went after it with all we had. … We prayed for help, then got to work, reminding ourselves to have fun and do our best. These are the same rules I give my children in everything they do—be it sports, music, or schooling. Have fun and do your best.
But these friends want to do more than just entertain and have fun. They want to help people—to inspire and encourage them. They want to ease burdens and generate light and hope.
Jon: A lot of the comments that come in on our videos say that the music has been an inspiration, or it has been a comfort or given someone hope, and that is the biggest motivation for all of us—that it’s provided a real positive in people’s lives. And we actually feel it—kind of a spiritual calling with what we are doing as well.
It’s not that different, in fact, from the mission of The Tabernacle Choir. The styles may be somewhat different, but the inspiration—the “spiritual calling”—is the same: a desire to bless and lift people with the power of beautiful music. For both the Choir and the Piano Guys, faith and spirituality flow through music.
Jon: We pray before shows, pray that people can feel inspired and comforted and all of the things that music has the power to do. We believe that music is one of the ways of God to reach out to His children, one of thousands of different ways to comfort them, to inspire them, to give them faith. And we feel deeply honored to be involved in that.
The composer Oscar Hammerstein once said, “It is a modern tragedy that despair has so many spokesmen, and hope [has] so few.”[2] The Piano Guys want to be spokesmen for hope.
Steven: We hope that as people listen and watch, they feel the worth of their own souls; and as George Frideric Handel once said, “They aren’t just entertained, but bettered.” As they listen and watch, we hope they can feel gratitude for the beauty of the earth, for God’s love, for family, and for all that is good in this world.
[1] Steven Sharp Nelson, in Esther Basha, “The Piano Guys—from YouTube to World Tour,” Piano Performer Magazine, June 22, 2018, magazine.pianoperformers.org.
[2] In Edward R. Murrow, This I Believe (radio program), Jan. 1, 1951, prx.org.
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August 28, 2022
Broadcast Number 4,849
The Tabernacle Choir
Orchestra at Temple Square
Guest Artist: The Piano Guys
Conductors
Mack Wilberg
Organist
Richard Elliott
Host
Lloyd Newell
In Hymns of Praise
Alfred Beirly; Arr. Mack Wilberg
The Mission/How Great Thou Art
Ennio Morricone/Swedish folk melody; Arr. Jon Schmidt, Al van der Beek, Steven Sharp Nelson
I Feel My Savior’s Love
K. Newell Dayley; Arr. Sam Cardon
Improvisation on “Hymn to Joy”
Ludwig Van Beethoven; Arr. Richard Elliott
Wayfaring Stranger
traditional American folk hymn; Arr. Mack Wilberg
Tuya es la gloria (To Thee Be the Glory)
traditional Latin American hymn; Arr. Mack Wilberg
Praise to the Lord, the Almighty
German hymn tune; Arr. Mack Wilberg