Gerrit Van Tussenbroek
(1910-1990) and Musa Van Tussenbroek (1911-1997) were both members of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. In 1955, the Choir made its first international
tour ever, performing in Europe. At that time, Gerrit was the assistant to the
president of the choir, Lester F. Hewlett. The event was such a big deal that
Warren John “Jack” Thomas, general manager of the tour, published a book about
the tour.
A few years ago my father,
Samuel Brooks Jr. (1934-2016) gave me a copy of that book:
(click on each photo to enlarge it)
The book mentions or shows
Gerrit and Musa several times (at that time, Musa was not yet a member of the
Choir, but would join later). In this first picture, Gerrit is bottom center:
These pages mention Gerrit and Musa:
In this picture, Musa is on the far left:
And in these two pictures, Gerrit and Musa are on the right and near the back:
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Fast forward to 2018:
Yesterday I was at the Deseret Industries in West Jordan when I came across
this book with three vinyl records in it:
This was an actual recording of the Choir's performances during the tour of 1955! Somewhere
in that cover photo is my own grandfather!
The front cover photo was
subsequently replicated when the Choir again toured Europe in 2016:
My particular copy was signed
by J. Spencer Cornwall, who was the director of the Choir at that time. The
inside cover indicated that these were recordings of their 1955 European tour:
I have digitized each record and posted them to Youtube.
You can hear a recording of Gerrit singing with the Choir! Listen to each
recording below:
- Side 1: Glasgow
- Side 2: Cardiff, London, Amsterdam
- Side 3: Scheveningen, Copenhagen
- Side 4: Berlin, Wiesbaden
- Side 5: Bern, Zurich
- Side 6: Paris
This has been an exciting discovery!
