Evie Clair was given a rare opportunity to perform and share stories of her ancestors at RootsTech, the largest family history conference in the world, on Saturday.
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With Keynote speakers like Olympic Ice Skater, Scott Hamilton and Latin musician, Natalia LaFourcade from the Disney movie Coco, RootsTech goes all out every year to give high priority to Family History. They make it relevant and fun for the whole family to jump into the past and research their ancestors. This year, for their main stage finale with over 10,000 in attendance and hundreds of thousands watching a live stream on lds.org, they featured Evie Clair. She shared music about families that is special to her and told of Swiss ancestors that she was able to learn more about through a RootsTech personal family history specialist.
While back stage for the rehearsal and the show day, Evie was able to meet and mingle with President Dallin H. Oaks of the first presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and his family, Elder Rendlund of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles as well as Scott Hamilton, Hank Smith and the incredible people she performed with including her good friend Sara Arkell, The Piano Gal, Alex Melecio, Kenya Clark, Rodrigo Benecourt and Masa Fukuda – director of the One Voice Children’s Choir and host Jason Hewlett. Natalia LaFourcade would have been there as well, but had to leave the conference early for an opportunity that came up to sing at the Oscars.
Evie’s family and friends came to watch her perform in the final main stage segment of the conference and were so touched by her songs and the deep meanings they held for the family. Evie sang To Where You Are made popular by Josh Groban and I’m not sure a dry eye could be found in the 13,000 seat room. One audience member said, “Somehow she conveys emotion so powerfully. It’s not the polish or power, just her ability to reach into your soul.”
Evie then spoke about her own Swiss ancestry and the incredible origin of her last name. She sang a song called Army of Angels written by her cousin McKenna Morris who is currently serving a mission in Russia. She then spoke of music and her ancestors and the origins of her musical talents. The final number was How Can a Moment Last Forever from the recent Beauty and the Beast movie. She sang with Alex and Kenya an arrangement by Masa Fukuda for the perfect finale.
Every detail of the conference was handled with such professionalism and Evie was so grateful to be part of it. They used a clip from America’s Got Talent to introduce her and in the exchange with NBC for licensing on that video, they were so impressed with RootsTech for going through all the correct channels to acquire legal rights to use the clip. They were impressed with an organization that would obey the rules so perfectly when so many others seemingly break copyright laws without thought or consequence.
RootTech 2018 was a success! We know our children had a wonderful time at the Family Discovery Day and we plan to return next year.
