The squabble over whether to sing at Donald Trump's inauguration next week may be unlike any other controversy for the famed Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
But it is hardly the only time "America's Choir" — as Ronald Reagan dubbed the Mormon singers — has been touched by politics, says Michael Hicks, a Brigham Young University music professor who wrote a "biography" of the choral group.
During World War II, for example, then-conductor Spencer Cornwall independently made arrangements with the Army to have the choir sing background music in a U.S. propaganda film, Hicks writes in his 2015 book, even though not all LDS leaders — including at least one member of the faith's governing First Presidency — believed the country should be fighting.
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