Janice Kapp Perry

Janice Kapp Perry (born October 1, 1938) is an American composer, songwriter, and author.

As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), she has written over 3,000 songs, some of which appeared in the church's official hymnal, and in the Children's Songbook.

Some of her most well-known songs include "I Love to See the Temple" and "A Child's Prayer."

Perry has also composed albums in Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.

Perry was born on October 1, 1938, in Ogden, Utah but spent her childhood on a farm in Vale, Oregon.

She grew up in a very musical family.

Her mother, Ruth, played the piano and wrote musicals for the children to perform in the community.

Her father, Jacob, learned to play the drums to accompany his wife in a family band.

After her father died, Perry played the drums in his place.

The children in the family also performed in a quartet.

In high school, she was in the band, playing snare drum and tympani.

She also wrote her very first song, entitled "I Walked in God's Garden."

Though music was an important part of her childhood, Perry spent most of her time playing sports.

She loved volleyball, basketball and even football.

She especially loved softball.

Perry attended Brigham Young University (BYU), where she studied music composition and theory.

While there, she played in BYU's concert band, orchestra and sang in the choir.

At the age of thirty-eight, Perry broke one of her ankles during one of her basketball games.

Her television broke at the same time.

With the extra time the incidents afforded her, she was assigned by her ward to compose music for their ward road show.

She entered church song writing competitions and wrote new songs for her local church community.

Perry experimented with many styles at the beginning of her career, writing pop music that she sent on demo tapes to Nashville and Los Angeles.

Not finding success with pop music, she began writing more contemporary gospel music.

Her first church song was written in 1976, entitled "I'll Follow Jesus."

She sent the sheet music to local bookstores and partnered with LDS musician Merrill Jenson to produce more music.

Perry released her first album Where is Heaven in 1978.

Two years later, she created a traveling musical called "It's a Miracle" which was performed in 239 different locations.

She and her husband founded Prime Recordings, a music production business.

Perry started her career writing her own melodies and words.

Later on, she also wrote music to accompany words written by others.

She created melodies to the words of Emily H. Woodmansee, Gordon B. Hinckley, and many others.

She has also collaborated with Orrin Hatch to create six albums of songs.

In 2001, their song "Heal our Land" was performed at the National Prayer Breakfast and again in 2005 for the presidential inauguration of George W. Bush.

In early 2008, Perry set LDS Church president Gordon B. Hinckley's poem, "What is this Thing Called Death," to music after one of her nieces died.

It was sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir at Hinckley's funeral.

Perry is a prolific composer.

She has written nearly 3,000 songs, which she compiled into more than 108 albums.

She has also written eight cantatas, two of which have been performed in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, and a number of musicals.

She is a member of the Utah Composers Guild, and has traveled all over the world to perform her work, including to Japan and Taiwan.

During Perry's career, a mysterious pain left one of her hands paralyzed.