Lynn R. Shurtleff

Lynn R. Shurtleff is a composer and retired professor of music. He composed “Father, This Hour Has Been One of Joy” (#154) included in the 1985 Hymns of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He has also arranged “As the Dew from Heaven Distilling” and composed “Heroes of the Scriptures,” “Home’s Bright Love,” “Little Pioneer Children,” “Pioneer Children Were Quick to Obey,” and “The Gift.”

Shurtleff was born on November 3, 1939, in Vallejo, California. He earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Brigham Young University. He also did graduate work at Indiana University and completed further studies of conducting in Vienna, Austria. He taught music at Moapa Valley High School for a year before becoming a professor of music at Santa Clara University in 1966. He became department chair in 1975. In 1983 he was named outstanding professor of the University.

He also directed the Santa Clara Chorale from 1969 to 2001. His work, For the First Manned Moon Orbit was commissioned for ten European performances of the Chorale and was later made into a film which was sold to CBS News and was broadcast nationally on Christmas Eve for ten consecutive years.

He composed more than two hundred works and is the recipient of numerous awards and grants, including a Ferdinand Grossman Fellowship for study of conducting in Vienna, Austria, and a grant from the Barlow Foundation for Musical Composition for a ballet that was presented in the Soviet Union.

He and his wife, Alma, are the parents of five children. He is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He has served in the Church as president of the Montevideo Uruguay Temple, president of the Ecuador Quito Mission, president of the Colombia Missionary Training Center, bishop, and stake president.