What Is the Latter-Day Musiversity All About?
Have you ever wished you could share your testimony through music? Even if you don’t have a degree in music, I can help you write powerful testimony-legacy primary songs, hymns, hymn arrangements, and other forms of Sacrament Meeting music. That’s what the Latter-Day Musiversity is all about.
Music was such a huge part of my life growing up. I’ll never forget when my dad wrote a song called “I Believe.” He was the Stake Youth Choir Director and we sang his song many times during firesides. Being able to feel the depth of his testimony through a song had a huge impact on me. And since it was captured in song, the tune and message stuck in my mind quickly and unforgettably.
During my college studies and masters and doctorate, I pursued intense training and became a professional composer. But it was during my post-doctorate as a Fulbright Scholar at the Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, Poland that the seeds of the Latter-Day Musiversity were born. I discovered an intense joy and love for composing music that focused on communicating the message of the Gospel. As I began my career as a professional composer, I wrote for many churches, including the Catholic, Episcopalian, Anglican, and Methodist Church. Setting the scriptures to music has become a great passion and calling for me.
But I eventually learned that it was an incomplete calling without helping others learn to do the same. And so, the Latter-Day Musiversity exists to allow me to help as many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints write testimony-building music so we can bring the world His truth more abundantly through music.
If you have a desire to leave a testimony legacy for your family, consider enrolling in one of the many programs or workshops.
Welcome to the Latter-Day Musiversity!
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Dr. Douglas Pew
Founder
Dr. Doug’s Formal Bio
American composer Douglas Pew (b. 1980) is noted for his ability to strike at the root of the emotional world through his music “with a showman’s touch and a poet’s soul, letting it take flight” (Jake Heggie, Moby Dick). His music has been heralded as “stunning…magical” (Washington Times) and “sensual, other-worldly, expressive and showcasing a rich harmonic pallet, sure to connect with audiences, while saying something fresh, profound and meaningful” (The Pianist's Craft Vol. 2).
His 1-hour chamber opera ‘Penny’ premiered by Washington National Opera at the John F. Kennedy Center to wide acclaim. “Penny simply works, not because we should like it, but because it has a story to tell. The different levels of musical characterization were far more than merely evocative, and they succeeded on a dramatic as well as a musical level” (Washington Post).
Douglas has received multiple awards including a Barlow Endowment commission, 1st prize in the 2009 SCI/ASCAP Student Composers Commission Competition, Musica Sacra International Choral Composition Competition in Poland, ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Award, Susan and For Schumann Fellowship at the Aspen Music Festival, and the Tangeman Sacred Music Center.
Douglas holds Masters and Doctoral degrees from the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of music as well as a post-graduate certificate from the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, Poland where he studied with internationally renowned composer Paweł Łukaszewski under the auspices of a Fulbright Grant. Douglas currently serves as composer-in-residence at St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Cincinnati, OH, and is active as a conductor, vocalist, author, and entrepreneur. His music is published by Boosey & Hawkes, Schott Music, Santa Barbara Music Publishing, Jackman Music Corporation, and his own publishing houses, Blue Shore Music and Latter-Day Musiversity Press.
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