Composer Talks About What Inspires Her, Her Favorite Work, How It Feels To Inspire Others and Advice She Has For Today’s Musicians
BYU School of Music alum Janice Kapp Perry recently celebrated her primary song, “Holding Hands Around the World” being featured in the October 2024 General Conference and accepted as part of the new LDS hymnbook.
As the composer of some of the most beloved primary songs for decades, such as “I Love to See the Temple,” “A Child’s Prayer” and “I’m Trying to Be Like Jesus,” Perry is a prolific composer whose life achievements merited an Honorary Doctorate of Christian Service in Music from BYU during the COVID-19 pandemic. She is grateful for the love and support she received from her children and career mentors to help her achieve all she has.
In a recent Q&A, Perry speaks of how her family and friends have often assisted in her composition and career advancement and how feedback she gets from composers in the church and BYU has been instrumental in her career development.
Q: What inspires you when composing music?
Perry: Doctrine. I worked on hymns about the Book of Mormon for 14 years. During the last decade, I have been writing hymns based on conference talks. I write hymns based on those talks with the help of a former stake president in Texas named David B. Larsen. He writes the lyrics.
As far as music, a holiday song I’m inspired by is “Mary’s Lullaby.” The words are by Bertha A. Kleinman and music by Wanda West Palmer.
Q: Do you have a favorite song or hymn you have composed? What makes it meaningful to you?
Perry: It was nice to hear “A Child's Prayer” was number one in LDS Living’s “100 Greatest LDS Songs of All Time.”
I wanted children to understand the concept that they could pray and that Heavenly Father would hear them.
Q: Many of your songs are widely beloved by Latter-day Saints. How do you feel seeing congregations and individuals embrace them so deeply?
Perry: When someone told me that “A Child’s Prayer” came in first place in the LDS Living article ratings, I said, “Don't tease me. I’m going to call them up.” When I called LDS Living, they said it didn’t just make the top of the list; it won by a landslide. I was glad to see that most of my songs from the Children’s Songbook made the list too.
I really thank the Church for suggesting a change to the lyrics in “A Child’s Prayer” so that anyone could sing them. The Church has helped me a lot. They provide composers to look over my work and give suggestions. My first composition was for a Church roadshow in the 1970s and “Holding Hands Around the World” was written in the fall of 2001 for a request from the General Primary Presidency to write a song for the first planned Primary Satellite Broadcast.
The church gives purpose to my music.
Q: Tell us about getting an honorary doctorate from BYU.
Perry: BYU has been very good to me.
Her son John, who was in attendance at the interview added, “When I approached BYU about giving my mom a degree, I was just thinking she would get a B.A. They said, "Let's give her a doctorate.”
Q: What advice would you give to aspiring musicians and composers studying at BYU today?
Perry: Think long-term and be teachable. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to focus on sports or music, but I thought music would be more of a lifetime occupation, and my mother convinced me of that. Without the two years of music theory I had at BYU, I don’t think I would have ever succeeded.
