Daniel Carter: Mormon Composer

Daniel Lyman Carter is a composer, songwriter, arranger, and lyricist. His recent work focuses on theatrical productions, but the body of his work reflects his membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He contributed dozens of compositions to Church magazines since the 1970s. His compositions include "As Now We Take the Sacrament" (Hymns 1985, no. 169), “The Shepherd's Carol,” and “A Young Man Prepared” (Children’s Songbook, pp. 40, 166, respectively). In 1993, Carter received a commission to compose "Refuge and Rest," a multimedia oratorio to commemorate the July 1996 Sesquicentennial Celebration of Winter Quarters. "Refuge and Rest" was expanded later that year to include the Mormon Pioneers’ exodus from Winter Quarters to journey to the Salt Lake Valley. It was performed in Utah in 1997 numerous times under the title "Seasons of Faith." In 1996, Carter was commissioned to compose "Come unto Christ, the Holy One of Israel" for the 1997 Sesquicentennial Celebration of the Church of Jesus Christ. He has approximately 500 pieces of music in print.

Some of his works have been performed and recorded by The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, including "Come unto Him," "The Pledge of Allegiance," and "Come unto Christ, the Holy One of Israel."

Carter served as a member of the General Music Committee of the Church of Jesus Christ from 1986 to 2004. He traveled to regional Church music workshops speaking and teaching in many subject areas and contributed an article on church music policy to the Ensign magazine’s column “I Have a Question.”

Carter was born in 1955 in Caldwell, Idaho. He knew when he was a child that he wanted to be a composer and conductor. When he was sixteen years old, he became the ward choir director and has served in that calling in every branch and ward he has lived in. He plays the piano and when he was five years old, he accidentally cut off his right index finger at the family’s butcher shop.[1]