Sally DeFord: Mormon Composer

Sally Giles DeFord is a prolific composer and arranger whose choral, duet, solo, and instrumental music is given away primarily to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which she is a member.

DeFord was born in 1959 in Eugene, Oregon. She fondly recalls that her love of music came listening to her grandmother practice the accordion and her grandfather singing her to sleep accompanied by his banjo. She wrote her first song—a ballad for a then-boyfriend—when she was sixteen, but scrapped it, as well as the next few songs she wrote. After she was married and had two children, she changed her music style to the gospel of Jesus Christ and wrote “It Was for Me.”

She attended Brigham Young University. Her music has been featured in Church magazines numerous times and she has received over thirty Church music awards for her compositions and arrangements. Her song, “If the Savior Stood Beside Me” was used in the 2008 Primary program and was performed in the Church’s General Young Women’s meeting in 2007.

Her music is downloadable from her website. “The Lord has placed me in circumstances that currently don't demand extra income, he has inspired the creators of technology to produce programs that I can use to publish the music without the assistance of typesetters, and he has given me a gift that I did nothing to earn. Sharing seems logical."[1]

She and her husband, Dennis, and their four children, live in Colorado Springs, Colorado.