External links
- The Book of Gold, MSS 7590: opera about the Book of Mormon with music by Boren, at L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University
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Murray Boren (born 1950) is a composer of opera, symphonic, chamber, and vocal works. He has written nine operas and over 100 songs and chamber compositions. He also contributed to the Joseph Sonnets. Among his operas are Book of Gold and Emma; both are based on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) history. In 2007, he retired from his position as composer-in-residence at the College of Music of the College of Fine Arts and Communications of Brigham Young University (BYU).
Murray Boren received his BM and MA in composition from Brigham Young University (BYU) in 1975 and 1977 respectively. [1] [2] He received a DMA in composition from the City University of New York in 2002. [2] Boren began his academic career as department head at the College of Education in Uyo, Nigeria, from 1970 to 1980. [2] He became a professor of composition and theory at BYU in 1980, a position he held for four years. [2] After this, he worked in administrative positions at the City University of New York and New York University from 1984 to 1994. [2] He returned to teach composition and theory at BYU in 1994 where he served as composer in residence until he retired in 2007. [3] [4] [2]
Boren has written nine operas, adapting them from religious texts and LDS Church history, as well as medieval mystery plays. [5] Orson Scott Card was the librettist for Boren's opera Abraham and Isaac based on Genesis 22 in the Bible. [5] [6] Boren wrote the opera Emma about Emma Smith, wife of the founder of the LDS Church, Joseph Smith. Emma received mixed reviews. [7] It was praised for its freshness, but criticized for being overly chromatic. Allan Kozinn of The New York Times praised the vocal performances and the unique orchestral music; however, he criticized the opera's slow pace stating that, "the sustained slow-motion caterwauling of the first five minutes was ample warning that this would be a very, very long evening." [8] Boren has collaborated with librettist Glen Nelson on three operas. [9] The Dead was a one-act opera adaptation of James Joyce 's Dubliners , first staged in New York in 1993. [10] They also collaborated on The Singer's Romance, a three-act opera inspired by a Willa Cather short story. [11] In 2005, Boren and Nelson collaborated to create The Book of Gold, an opera about Joseph Smith. [12] [13] In addition to opera, Boren has written over 100 songs and chamber compositions. He wrote the music for the Joseph Sonnets, which were created in co-operation with Sally Taylor. [14] Several of Boren's pieces were first performed by orchestras directed by Kory Katseanes. [15] [3]
Boren is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Satins and is married to Susan Alexander Boren, a soprano with whom he has performed. [16] [17] [18] They have three children. [19]
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In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles is one of the governing bodies in the church hierarchy. Members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles are apostles, with the calling to be prophets, seers, and revelators, evangelical ambassadors, and special witnesses of Jesus Christ.
The Joseph Smith Translation (JST), also called the Inspired Version of the Holy Scriptures (IV), is a revision of the Bible by Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, who said that the JST/IV was intended to restore what he described as "many important points touching the salvation of men, [that] had been taken from the Bible, or lost before it was compiled". Smith was killed before he deemed it complete, though most of his work on it was performed about a decade beforehand. The work is the King James Version of the Bible (KJV) with some significant additions and revisions. It is considered a sacred text and is part of the canon of Community of Christ (CoC), formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and other Latter Day Saint churches. Selections from the Joseph Smith Translation are also included in the footnotes and the appendix of the Latter-day Saint edition of the LDS-published King James Version of the Bible. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' edition of the Bible includes selections from the JST in its footnotes and appendix. It has officially canonized only certain excerpts that appear in the Pearl of Great Price. These excerpts are the Book of Moses and Smith's revision of part of the Gospel of Matthew.
Mormon cinema usually refers to films with themes relevant to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The term has also been used to refer to films that do not necessarily reflect Mormon themes but have been made by Mormon filmmakers. Films within the realm of Mormon cinema may be distinguished from institutional films produced by the LDS Church, such as Legacy and Testaments, which are made for instructional or proselyting purposes and are non-commercial. Mormon cinema is produced mainly for the purposes of entertainment and potential financial success.
Abraham Owen Smoot was an American pioneer, businessman, religious leader, and politician. He spent his early life in the Southern United States and was one of seven children. After being baptized a member of the Church of Christ, predecessor to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Smoot served as a missionary in Kentucky, Tennessee, South Carolina, and England. He received no formal education, but learned to read as a child and later attended the School of the Prophets in Kirtland, Ohio. Like other early members of the LDS Church, Smoot practiced plural marriage, eventually marrying six women and having 24 children. After migrating west to Utah Territory, he was elected as the second mayor of Salt Lake City and maintained this position from 1857 to 1866. He was then assigned by Brigham Young to move to Provo, where he served as stake president and mayor from 1868 to 1881. He assisted financially in the construction of the Provo Tabernacle—today the Provo City Center Temple—as well as that of the Utah Southern Railroad. Smoot was the first president of the board of trustees of Brigham Young Academy (BYA)—which later developed into Brigham Young University (BYU). He was an early financial supporter of the institution and was nicknamed the "foster father" of the academy. His goal was to make education available to young Latter-day Saints. Today, the Smoot Administration Building at BYU is named after him.
Thomas Glen Alexander is an American historian and academic who is a professor emeritus at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah, where he was also Lemuel Hardison Redd, Jr. Professor of Western History and director of the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies. After studying at Weber State University (WSU) and Utah State University (USU), he received a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in 1965. He taught history at BYU from 1964 until 2004, and served in the leadership of various local and historical organizations.
Royal Jon Skousen is an American linguist and retired professor of linguistics and English at Brigham Young University (BYU), where he is editor of the Book of Mormon Critical Text Project. He is "the leading expert on the textual history of the Book of Mormon" and the founder of the analogical modeling approach to language modeling.
Mormons have numerous significant instances of violence throughout their history as a religious group. In the early history of the United States, violence was used as a form of control. According to Mormon history, their members have faced persecution and forceful expulsion from where they have settled, such as being driven from Ohio to Missouri and from Missouri to Illinois during the lifetime of church founder Joseph Smith. Soon, those that followed one of Smith's successors Brigham Young settled in the Utah Territory and became the largest denomination of the Latter Day Saint movement, the LDS Church. Church history records that their migrations were accompanied by acts of violence that included massacres, home burnings, and pillaging.
Levi Edgar Young was a general authority of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was one of the seven presidents of the Seventy from 1909 until his death. He has been associated with the release of the 1832 account of Joseph Smith's First Vision, which was previously not widely known. Aside from his service in the Seventy, Young served as president of various LDS Church missions. Young received a master's degree from Columbia University in history and was a professor of history at the University of Utah.
Dean Cornell Jessee is a historian of the early Latter Day Saint movement and leading expert on the writings of Joseph Smith Jr.
Brigham Young University Press was the university press of Brigham Young University (BYU).
Paul Y. Hoskisson is an American professor of Ancient scripture and former associate dean of Religious Education at Brigham Young University (BYU). In 2008, he was appointed director of the Laura F. Willes Center for Book of Mormon Research.
Kory Katseanes is a Professor of Music and the Director of Orchestras at the BYU School of Music and was the director of the School of Music from 2009-2015. Brigham Young University (BYU) The orchestra program at BYU is one of the largest collegiate orchestra programs in the United States. He has also been a guest conductor for multiple orchestras.
Richard Eyring "Rick" Turley Jr. is an American historian and genealogist. He previously served as both an Assistant Church Historian of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and as managing director of the church's public affairs department.
Paul Robert Cheesman was an American academic and a professor of religion at Brigham Young University (BYU).
Mormon studies is the interdisciplinary academic study of the beliefs, practices, history and culture of individuals and denominations belonging to the Latter Day Saint movement, a religious movement associated with the Book of Mormon, though not all churches and members of the Latter Day Saint movement identify with the terms Mormon or Mormonism. Denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement include the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, by far the largest, as well as the Community of Christ (CoC) and other smaller groups, include some categorized under the umbrella term Mormon fundamentalism.
Eric Roy Samuelsen was an American playwright and emeritus professor of theatre at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He is considered one of the most important Mormon playwrights. He won the Association for Mormon Letters (AML) drama award in 1994, 1997, and 1999, and was AML president from 2007 to 2009. In 2012 he received the Smith–Pettit Foundation Award for Outstanding Contribution to Mormon Letters.
Glen Nelson is an American poet, librettist, publisher, writer, and a ghostwriter of several New York Times nonfiction bestsellers. He wrote the libretto for The Book of Gold, an opera about Joseph Smith publishing the Book of Mormon. He is the founder of New York City's Mormon Artists Group and co-founder of the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts. He has written several nonfiction books that focus on Mormon artists.
This is a bibliography of works on the Latter Day Saint movement.
This is a bibliography of literature treating the topic of criticism of Mormonism, sorted by alphabetical order of titles.
Rowan S. Taylor (1927–2005) was an American composer and conductor. Taylor composed over 250 symphonies in addition to his concertos, songs, chamber works, operas, choral works, and ballets. His works have been performed all over the world. Taylor received both his bachelor's and master's degrees from Brigham Young University. He studied at UCLA for three years before teaching at Pierce College where he taught for 39 years. He has been honored for his teaching and his works. In his personal life, Taylor was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He married Priscilla Pulliam in 1957 and had nine children.
