Success in music came early to Robert C. Bowden who, as a 13-year-old in Rock Springs, Wyo., and leader of his own dance band, was already a member of the musicians' union.
But after achieving academic and professional stature, he was almost lured away from a musical career by a lucrative family business venture. It took a call extended by the First Presidency to get him back on track.
That was 25 years ago. With the recent dissolution of the 30-year-old Mormon Youth Chorus and Symphony pursuant to restructuring of the musical groups on Temple Square, the 66-year-old maestro is retiring at the end of this month — though he vows he is not quitting music.
Born in Preston, Idaho, son and, until age17, the only child of a banker, Robert moved with his parents to Montpelier at age 3. While there he nurtured an innate fascination with music and won a prize for tap dancing. The family moved to Ogden, Utah, when he was 10. It was there he began singing lessons and played drums in a local drum-and-bugle corps. After moving to Copperton, Utah, he began learning saxophone and piano. Shortly after that, the family moved to Rock Springs, Wyo., which he considers his home town.
After high school graduation, he enrolled at BYU in 1952, studying music.
The following year, he passed an audition in San Francisco and enlisted in the U.S. Navy as a musician. He then went to the Naval School of Music in Washington, D.C., ending up as an instructor and spending his last year with the Great Lakes Naval Band.
He was still a student when he met his wife, Faye. "I made the mistake of going to Church," he said jokingly, "and I spied this cute little girl."
They were married in 1954, moving up the date because they thought that he was going to be shipped out soon. Instead, he stayed on at the school as an instructor. The following summer they were sealed in the Logan Temple. In 45 years of marriage the Bowdens have been blessed with a posterity of nine children (with an eight-year lapse between the first five and last four, he said they had "two families") and 21 grandchildren.
Returning to BYU in 1957, he obtained bachelor's and master's degrees in music, then went on to the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, on a scholarship and assistantship. Obtaining a master's degree there, he became an instructor at the school.
In Boston, L. Tom Perry, then a stake president and now a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, took the Bowdens under his wing and assumed the role of confidant. His advice would be very influential in Brother Bowden's future decisions.
It was also in Boston that the then-33-year-old musician came under the notice of Arthur Fiedler, whose Boston Pops Orchestra was familiar to millions of Americans through its "Evening at Pops" television series over the Public Broadcasting System. While at the conservatory, Brother Bowden served as musical director at Mt. Ida Junior College. Leo Litwin, head of the college's music department, was a pianist with the orchestra.
"He heard me at the piano one day playing a tune I had written called "Bostonian Rhumba." He said, 'Would you mind if I showed that to Arthur Fiedler?' Well, I was elated."
The director not only wanted to perform it on the program, but let its composer conduct it himself. Thereafter, Brother Bowden was invited back to conduct the orchestra and arranged a piece that it performed.
After nine years at the conservatory, Brother Bowden returned to Utah to pursue a doctoral degree at the University of Utah.
"Things just sort of worked out here in Salt Lake," Brother Bowden recalled.
But just as he was finishing up his doctorate, his father offered him a part in a lucrative business venture back home in Rock Springs. In a turmoil over the decision, and with his wife clearly opposed to the prospect, he contacted Elder Perry, by then a General Authority, who suggested he remain in music in some capacity.
The next day, he approached the president of Western Wyoming Junior College with a unique proposal.
"I said, 'Here are my credentials; I want to teach here at your school in music, and you don't have to pay me.' He said, 'I've got to talk to the head of the music department; I'll get back to you.' About three hours later, he called me on the phone and said, 'You've got the job, but we're going to pay you.' "
The business venture turned out to be very successful, but Brother Bowden's participation lasted only nine months. He was contacted by President Marion G. Romney, second counselor in the First Presidency. President Romney called him to be one of two new associate directors of the Tabernacle Choir, along with Jerold D. Ottley.
Part of Brother Bowden's new role involved working with the Mormon Youth.
"Things were running along nicely," he said. "Then, when we'd been here five months, I got called in by President Romney. The First Presidency was thinking of administratively separating it [Mormon Youth from the Tabernacle Choir] and wanted to know if I would become conductor of the youth group. I frankly told President Romney I thought it would be a mistake to break it apart. He said he would have to take it back to President [Spencer W.] Kimball. But he said, 'What if we decide we're still going to do it?' He said I could remain with the Tabernacle Choir if I chose. I said, 'That's too hard a decision. If you want me to conduct the youth group, you just call me to it.' "
That was what they did, and from 1974 on, Brother Bowden remained at the Mormon Youth conductor's podium for the remaining 25 years of its existence.
Leading the Mormon Youth Symphony and Chorus was not what Brother Bowden had set out to do. And he was not entirely sure about it in the beginning, particularly after learning that the musicians were not to travel or record and could do only three or four concerts a year.
"I went home that night and told my wife I'd made the biggest mistake of my life," he said.
Within a couple of years, he persuaded Church leaders that the Mormon Youth Symphyony and Chorus was a missionary tool, a light that ought not to be hidden under a bushel. Ultimately, the group was given permission to accept an invitation to perform at the Hollywood Bowl.
Among the symphony and chorus venues over the past 25 years have been Washington, D.C., New York and Philadelphia in 1987 and two U.S. Navy aircraft carriers, one in 1986 and one this year.
Concerts have been prolific, amounting to as many as 30 in one year. Appearances have included a session at each of the twice yearly general conferences.
And there are 38 recordings in the group's catalog. They were first granted permission to record an album of patriotic music for the nation's bicentennial in 1976.
"Two years later, we said we'd like to do one more," Brother Bowden said. "Pretty soon, it got to the point that we had a contract with Covenant Recordings, and we didn't have to ask permission, we would just say what we were planning to do."
The second such venture was an album of Primary songs — with a twist. The LDS children's standard, "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree," for example, was beefed up with syncopated rhythm and jazz chords.
"In doing the arrangements, as a courtesy, I would go to the Primary office and let them know what we were doing," he recalled. "In doing 'I Hope They Call Me on a Mission,' I arranged it in a real western style. They [the Primary] didn't like it too much." But the publisher left it in. Later, a flute player in the orchestra told Brother Bowden her dad liked the arrangement. It turned out her father had written the song and he thought the rendition caught the exact flavor he had intended.
Other standouts in those 38 albums, according to Brother Bowden, include "Nauvoo Brass Bands," recorded the year of the Pioneer Sesquicentennial, 1997. But he actually began researching it many years before, ascertaining what instruments composed the brass bands in Nauvoo and how the sound could be approximated in modern times. The result was a compilation that highlights several of the melodies that were borrowed by early Church members for hymns that have become standards among the LDS people.
Among a number of public television specials done by Mormon Youth that stand out in his mind is "Christmas World." As the title implies, it features yuletide celebrations and songs from different cultures of the world. Brother Bowden even insisted on highlighting the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah, enlisting a cantor from a local synagogue to teach the chorus how to pronounce the words in the music.
Producers of the show balked at the inclusion, but because of it, Israel was one of many nations around the world in which the program was played repeatedly. It won a regional Emmy Award in 1980, the first to be received by a Church organization.
Over a quarter century, the director has worked with two generations of young musicians; some of the later ones are the offspring of original symphony or chorus members. He praised their dedication.
"And some of the talent that has been in this group is remarkable, people like [violinist] Jenny Oaks have been in this group. We've got people playing in the Utah Symphony today that were in this group, and professional musicians around town that are doing recording sessions in studios. Kurt Bestor played trumpet for a while with the Mormon Youth Symphony."
Those talented musicians are part of the legacy as he leaves this position (though he declares, "I'm not quitting" and hints at some future musical ventures that are already in place). Another part of that legacy is his testimony expressed through his music. On Aug. 8, he was guest conductor on the Tabernacle Choir's nationwide "Music and the Spoken Word" broadcast. On the program he led the choir in performing his unique and resonant arrangement, performed so often by the Mormon Youth Chorus, giving melodic expression to the words, "Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee, How great Thou art, how great Thou art."
A reception honoring Robert C. Bowden will be held Aug. 26 from 7-9 p.m. in the Ambassador Room of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake City.
