Last week Mormon Artists Group announced the availability of a fine edition version of BYU Assistant Professor of Music Jeremy Grimshaw’s The Island of Bali is Littered with Prayers, an account of his trip to the island to study gamelan music and subsequent efforts to start a gamelan orchestra in Utah. I’m pleased to bring [...]
Arthur Hatton created Linescratchers — a blog, podcast and web forum for LDS musicians who don’t write/record/perform “LDS music” (e.g. devotional or Christian-pop inspired LDS music) — in June 20008 as a blogspot blog featuring artist interviews. It has since moved to its own domain name and expanded what it offers, including rolling out a [...]
Two years ago I reviewed Stan Bronson’s album Down from the Mountain for AMV. My family has really enjoyed Bronson’s appealing singing voice and musical take on San Juan County history. My impression of the album was that anyone interested in Mormon-themed folk music might find Down from the Mountain a fun listen.
The website I linked to went [...]
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Elder Douglas L. Callister of the Seventy wrote a delightful article in this month’s Ensign, “Our Refined Heavenly Home.” I’m ashamed to admit that I might never have read it had not my dear wife told me I should. (I keep saying I’ll stick the Ensign in the bathroom where it will actually get read, [...]
Mormon Artist is a new on-line magazine that is imressive in its ambitions, and even more impressive in the fact that it seems to be meeting those ambitions. This is a publication to watch. After having just released the third issue, I interviewed Mormon Artist editor and founder Ben Crowder. The magazine can be found [...]
On Saturday, November 29, I participated in activities at the Bluff Arts Festival in Bluff, Utah. This little town of just a few hundred people really knows how to throw a party. I took my eighteen-year-old son, an aspiring writer, to this celebration of the arts, sciences, and the human spirit, and having him with me deepened my [...]
Sally DeFord is one of the most prolific modern LDS composers and arrangers. Her work has been featured in Church magazines seven times and she has received 33 Church music awards for her compositions and arrangements. Seriously, search for her name on LDS.org—there are eighteen hits. Her song, “If the Savior Stood Beside Me” was [...]
I’m finally getting around to processing my notes on Rapture Ready! Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture by Daniel Radosh. One of the most interesting sections deals with the Christian music industry and various opinions over what is and isn’t acceptable in the industry. Radosh interviews Jay Howard co-author of Apostles of [...]