Reid Nibley

Reid Neibauer Nibley was a pianist, composer, and teacher.

He was born on January 5, 1923, to Alexander and Agnes Sloan Nibley. While a child in Southern California, he began the study of the piano at the age of six and at the age of eleven he debuted with the Glendale Symphony Orchestra. At the age of seventeen he was a soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. During his long career, he was the principal pianist for the Utah Symphony Orchestra and concertized throughout the world.

He taught at the University of Utah, Michigan State, and Interlocken. At Brigham Young University he was professor of music and pianist in residence for sixteen years. In 2007, the BYU School of Music began a scholarship fund in his name.

Nibley composed and arranged innumerable compositions, including the Latter-day Saint Primary song “I Know My Father Lives,” which appears in both the Children’s Songbook and the 1985 hymnal of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which he was a member. A CD of some of his works, including Quiet Classics: Piano Meditations, was released in 1998.

Nibley and his wife Marjorie were the parents of six children. She passed away in 2000. In 2001 he married Nona Larkin Gallacher. He passed away on February 25, 2008.