Ann Kapp Andersen – Composer/Arranger

ANN KAPP ANDERSEN (1945-    ) was born in Ogden, Utah and grew up in the farming community of Vale, Oregon.  The Kapp family was always very involved in music in the LDS Church, as well as in the community, schools and popular dance music.

Ann began piano lessons with her mother, Ruth Kapp, at the age of five.  Her childhood was filled with performances on recitals, community meetings, school festivals, weddings, etc., along with church music and sports teams. She studied piano and music theory with Marilee Scheer in Vale for all four years of high school and continued study as a piano major with Merrill Bradshaw at BYU for two years, during which she played trombone in the Concert Band (Ralph Laycock, conductor) and sang with A Cappella Choir under Kurt Weinzinger (acting as its “pitchpipe”, since she has perfect pitch).  Ann continued to participate in musical activities after she married Thayne I. Andersen in 1966 but didn’t return to college until 1985, after her family had moved to Alaska.

She enrolled at University of Alaska Fairbanks as a piano major, studying with Dr. James F. Johnson, and in 1989 received a Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Performance.  After laying out of college for a few years to raise a son and daughter and many Alaska Native foster children, Ann returned to her music studies at UAF and in 1997 earned a Master of Arts degree in Conducting with show music emphasis.  Her current favorite musical things to do are conducting, writing arrangements of music, and teaching piano.  Between 2008 and 2114, Ann recorded “Soft Sounds for a Soothing Sunday”, a twelve-CD set of the music of her sister, Janice Kapp Perry, arranged for piano solo. She and Janice have recently embarked on another collaborative project of Ann writing choral arrangements of Janice’s hymns. These appear on HolySheetMusic’s website.