For more than 30 years, Richard Elliott has inspired audiences worldwide as an organist for The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square.
Elliott was introduced to and baptized as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while studying for his undergraduate degree. He later served a mission in Argentina, married his wife, Elizabeth, in the Washington D.C. Temple and taught as an assistant professor of organ at Brigham Young University.
Today, Elliott is the Church’s principal organist for The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square. He joins Church News editor Ryan Jensen on this episode of the Church News podcast to discuss the power of music and conversion to Christ.
Listen to this episode of the Church News podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon, Spotify, bookshelf PLUS, YouTube or wherever you get podcasts.
Transcript:
Richard Elliott: When you sit down at the bench for general conference, to play for a conference session, or at the choir Christmas concerts, it’s very easy to start doubting yourself and saying, “Do I really know how to do this?” But then if you exercise faith and pray and make the Savior the focus, then you feel the reassurance of the Holy Ghost telling you, “You can do this,” and things work out. And there are no coincidences, for me, in the gospel, that our Heavenly Father has a plan for each of us and that, if we are in tune with the Spirit, we can see His hand in every aspect, really, of our lives.
0:50
Jon Ryan Jensen: This is Jon Ryan Jensen, editor of the Church News. Welcome to the Church News podcast. Today, we are taking you on a journey of connection as we discuss news and events of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
A young man growing up in Baltimore, Maryland — near the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. — Richard Elliott once dreamed of becoming a studio musician and played in a rock band as a teenager. Elliott eventually went to college to study music at places like the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University; Catholic University of America; the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester in New York.
While studying for his undergraduate degree, he was introduced to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Book of Mormon. After studying the book and praying about it and the Church, Elliott chose to be baptized. He later met his wife while still in school — she plays the piano — and the two were married in the Washington D.C. Temple.
Today, Elliott is the Church’s principal organist for the Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square. And in August of 2025, he traveled with the choir and orchestra to perform in Argentina, the country where he served as a missionary after he joined the Church. He said at the time he felt “over the moon” when that stop was announced.
We’re excited to hear more today about both his missionary experience in Argentina and the return trip with the choir, in addition to hearing how the gospel of Jesus Christ has blessed his life in general.
Richard Elliott, welcome to the Church News podcast.
Richard Elliott: Thank you, Ryan. Great to be with you.
2:21
Jon Ryan Jensen: Before we get into the questions, I do want to note for our podcast listeners that we are recording today in the Tabernacle on Temple Square. Tours are ongoing, and we may hear some noises from those visiting as we speak today. And you happen to be seated right at the bench next to a familiar friend, and a seat that I hope has become very comfortable to you here in the Tabernacle.
Richard Elliott: Yes. As President [Gordon B.] Hinckley said about the benches here, they are wood, but the soft side is on the top, so we’re very used to this bench.
2:51
Jon Ryan Jensen: Well, I want to start by asking you a little bit about your growing up in Baltimore. My own sister and brother-in-law raised their family there for nearly two decades.
And I’m interested to know: What was it like growing up there for you?
Richard Elliott: Oh, I loved the area. It still feels like home in many, many ways. And I’m the black sheep of my family. My three sisters are all still in Maryland. My parents passed away in their home there just a few years ago, in Baltimore City. So my mother was very much a person of the city. Grew up in Baltimore, was able to walk everywhere, and the love of that city just permeated our family.
We participated fully in the events of the community and still do as a family. And being that close to Washington, D.C., also meant that we made frequent trips there and just loved knowing about the way their country works and partaking of the many cultural things there, and the Smithsonian, all the museums there. So it was just a great place to grow up.
3:52
Jon Ryan Jensen: Did you have much of a religious part of that upbringing?
Richard Elliott: Yes, I was raised in the Lutheran church, and we were very active in the Church. So some of my earliest memories are of the Sunday school for children. I remember Miss Eleanor, the teacher. It was a nice, wonderful lady of German heritage who taught me. And I remember at the age of 3 or 4 just sitting at her feet while she read books with pictures of Jesus and the children and taught us about His teachings and what He meant, really, to us as Christians.
4:29
Jon Ryan Jensen: Having that foundation of the Savior already in your life, what was the conversion process, then, for you, when you were introduced first to the Church?
Richard Elliott: I had a solid founding, really, in the Bible, but also in really a vital church that believed in serving in the community, and we did a lot with kids in the neighborhood where the church was. By the time I went away to college, there was a lot of difficulties, a lot of struggles there, economically with families and a lot of children in broken homes, and so we did a lot with that. My great-grandfather was a minister, a Methodist minister, so there was already that tradition in the family of service, especially believing that if you believe in the Savior, you also believe in following His example and His teachings and doing what you can to improve the lives of others around you.
5:24
Jon Ryan Jensen: I’ve heard you talk about how, because you had such a background in the Bible, that when you read the Book of Mormon, that it was a little bit easier for you to identify and feel the truth that you were reading there.
What was that experience like?
Richard Elliott: Yeah, yeah. So, it definitely built upon and expanded my understanding of the Savior and especially of the great plan. And one of the teachings of the Church that spoke to me the most right from the very start, when I began investigating the Church, was about the plan of salvation; because I had always believed that I had come from someplace else, that I had been in my Heavenly Father’s presence before I came here, and that this life wasn’t the end and it wasn’t the only thing that we’re having to deal with, that we’re preparing for another, more wonderful place eventually. So that all made sense, and the Book of Mormon, of course, has so many teachings that clarify what that great plan of happiness is all about.
6:22
Jon Ryan Jensen: And so you have that conversion experience while you’re in college, and they’re in college as well. You also meet your eventual wife and get married in the temple that was closest to Baltimore as well.
Can you talk about meeting her and then the decision to be married?
Richard Elliott: Yeah. Well, we met after I got back from my mission. That was 1983. And I showed up at the Eastman School of Music in the summer of 1983 to begin my studies, and she came in the fall as a freshman. So at first, we didn’t want to have much to do with each other. At least, we were miles apart agewise, nine years apart, and at very different stages in our education. But she was raised there in upstate New York in a very active family in the Church.
And we just found ourselves going to a lot of the same activities as young single adults. And eventually, because of our connection through the gospel, but also in music, we found that we spoke a lot of the same language and had a lot in common and mutual admiration, which blossomed into love. And then at the time, the Washington D.C. Temple was the closest temple. Really, that was the official temple for New York State. And it was nice that it was so close to my area where I grew up.
7:43
Jon Ryan Jensen: So, did the two of you play together, perform together, at all?
Richard Elliott: We have, yeah. And actually, when we were still dating and courting, Robert Cundick — who was my predecessor here at the Tabernacle — arranged for us to come out and perform on Temple Square. And so as part of that, I played a solo recital here on the Tabernacle organ, but she and I also did a joint recital together in the Assembly Hall, where she played a number of piano solos, and I played a few organ pieces, and then we combined for some duets on the organ and on the piano. So it was a wonderful, wonderful memory for both of us.
Jon Ryan Jensen: That sounds like a lot of fun.
Richard Elliott: So, we were both getting graduate degrees there at Eastman. I’d finished a master’s and was doing a doctorate, and she was doing her master’s. And I got a call one day out of the blue, from somebody here in Utah, who said, “Did you know that BYU has a new organ faculty position?” And I hadn’t heard that at all, and so I called up BYU, and they told me about it and asked if I wanted to be considered. And I said, “Sure.”
So I got ready and packed up, and they had me come out and audition, and I was hired. My wife was hired also to the music faculty at the same time, in piano. So that was 1988. And then two years later, I got another phone call saying that there was going to be an opening with the Tabernacle Choir when Robert Cundick was retiring, and asking if I wanted to be considered for that. And that was a little more difficult, because at that point, we both loved teaching at BYU, and we were very much aware of the Tabernacle organists and their work schedules. And it’s a year-round job, and sometimes it’s a seven-day-a-week job and very intense at times.
But after praying about it and fasting about it and thinking about it, we just felt like this was the right thing to do. And so, I auditioned and got the job and had to keep it a secret for six, seven months, I think. So, President Hinckley interviewed us both in October of 1990, and I didn’t start until May of 1991. So we were allowed to tell my boss and my parents, and that was it.
10:02
Jon Ryan Jensen: You have compared playing the organ to a lot of different things over the years. You’ve compared it to marriage. You’ve compared it to driving a car and even compared some organs to some specific cars. We can debate those later.
But I’m wondering if you could tell us how playing the organ compares to living the gospel of Jesus Christ. What parallels do you see there, and what lessons do you feel can be learned viewing the gospel through maybe that lens?
10:26
Richard Elliott: There are so many parallels, and I think one of the most important ones is simply that when you make a mistake — which everybody does, in music or in any other performing kind of activity, sports or being a circus performer or whatever — there are times when things don’t go according to plan and when you hit the wrong key or the wrong button or something. And it’s very easy to want to just kick yourself and say, “Why did I do that?” or compare yourself with others, and say, “Why aren’t I as good of a musician as that other person?”
But the most important thing is just to be able to learn what you can learn from that experience and then move on. and with the gospel, of course, we have the Atonement, we have the Savior’s teachings and example to help us to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off and keep going. So I think that’s really important.
And also, music really is an act of faith, and you have to put in the time. You can’t just expect to learn the things that we all need to learn to return to our heavenly home. You have to make that a daily effort. Practicing is the same way; you just can’t show up on the day of your performance and cram everything in and expect it to go well. So it requires daily effort, but it also requires faith and belief in yourself, and especially in the Holy Ghost and the influence that that can have in helping us with things.
So, when you sit down at the bench for general conference, to play for a conference session, or at the choir Christmas concerts, it’s very easy to start doubting yourself and saying, “Do I really know how to do this? Can I make it through this?” But then, if you’ve prepared yourself, and if you exercise faith and pray and make the Savior the focus, then you feel the reassurance of the Holy Ghost telling you, “You can do this,” and things work out. And sometimes — this is my experience — sometimes I feel like I’m not even the one that’s playing, that there’s a greater power that’s taken over if I’ve done all the preparation that I need to do.
12:30
Jon Ryan Jensen: Thanks for sharing that experience. Tell me about music. Why did you choose music? Why were you drawn to it, especially from an early age in your life?
Richard Elliott: I really sensed at an early age that music was a gift from heaven that had great power to bring lots of good feelings to people, but it also had power in other ways that were not positive. But I could see that just in my own home, that if my parents would put on a recording, or if my mother would play the piano, or if we would be singing together as a family, it could just change the feeling, just instantaneously. If we were feeling worried about things or whatever, music just kind of had a way of making people feel better and making them want to be better people.
And so I sensed that, and that drove my desire to learn how to be a better musician and take lessons as a kid. And part of that was just curiosity about how these things work — how pianos work, how organs work — and trying to figure out how to make sounds that made me happy. But in the process, I was also trying to learn how to use that for the benefit of other people. So that’s really been my lifelong desire, is to use that power in a positive way, rather than in a way that’s self-serving or a way that’s even destructive.
13:55
Jon Ryan Jensen: With the addition of new hymns in the Church’s repertoire, some Latter-day Saints are feeling that desire to understand new sets of music in a way that they haven’t previously. And they’ve been wondering, “How do we make this fit into what our preconceived notions were of sacred music and the sacred hymn experiences at home and at church?”
What counsel would you give to those who are trying to learn both how to sing new songs and how to feel the Spirit as they sing those new songs?
14:27
Richard Elliott: That’s a really good question. You know, the history of sacred music has always been one of change and evolution and of adaptation. So some of the great hymns of all time actually started out as popular songs that were love songs or had very secular associations but later became adapted to the sacred context through changes in the text and in the general tempo or the speed of the piece.
So I think a lot of the newer hymns that we’re receiving now are in that category, where there are things that feel a little bit foreign, but with time, they’ll become part of our language in the Church. And even with the 1985 hymnal, which came out shortly after I came off of my mission, there were some things there. I remember that some things that people took to right away and just love, like “I Believe in Christ,” I remember that hymn particularly. But other things like “O Savior, Thou Who Wearest a Crown,” just a wonderful text and wonderful, wonderful music. Or others where, for instance, “If You Could Hie to Kolob,” which is a favorite of mine, where the previous music was disposed of in favor of a new range of notes that really seemed to match the meaning of the words much better.
So, it’s a process, but I think — I’ve been watching on Facebook some conversations between organists in our Church regarding the new hymns, and what I sense is there’s a lot of excitement, but there’s also some jitters on the part of those who don’t know quite how to handle this new style. And people are helping each other. So I think if we lean on each other and reach out when we need help and just listen, there’s going to be plenty of opportunities out there for people to share their experiences with the new hymns. And eventually, they’ll become more of our language in the Church.
16:33
Jon Ryan Jensen: You don’t only play here at Temple Square and with The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square, but you also perform in other places as well and in other churches.
Do you find feedback from other people saying, “I haven’t heard it that way, and I felt something different when you played it.” Do you have those kinds of conversations when you perform?
16:53
Richard Elliott: Yeah, for sure, and everybody brings their whole life of experiences with them when they perform, and then a lot of that comes out. So just the five of us that are here on the paid organ staff, even though we have similar backgrounds in some ways, we each had our own life story and our own approach to music, and so that comes through.
And I think in the Church we have, there’s a lot of history here with the Tabernacle Choir and the Tabernacle organ, and people are familiar with that. So people respond to that. A lot of the times, I talk to people in these other venues who say, “I started listening to ‘Music & the Spoken Word’ when I was a teenager,” and now they’re in their 70s or 80s, and they’re still following it, and that has made them even more, feel more at home with the music that we bring with us and feel like it’s a source of comfort and familiarity to them.
So, I think that’s the thing I noticed the most. There’s definitely overlap between our playing styles and those of other organists and other churches and everything. So I always make it a conscious effort to play at least one piece, if not two or three, on my programs that have some kind of a connection to Temple Square, whether they were written by a previous Tabernacle organist or something that people identify strongly with the Church.
18:20
Jon Ryan Jensen: Yeah, a “Come, Come, Ye Saints,” or something like that, yeah.
Richard Elliott: Exactly, yeah.
Jon Ryan Jensen: You have your own experiences to draw on personally, partly because of the mission that you served in Argentina back in your 20s.
Looking back, what role has that experience of serving a mission in Argentina played in your life?
18:36
Richard Elliott: My mission was just a wonderful experience from start to finish, and it was the hardest thing, also, the most difficult thing that I’ve ever done. And I went in knowing that it was going to be difficult but that that was part of the growth process and part of what missionary work has always meant. So I think I went in really with a strong desire to serve.
Yeah, I was raised with the scripture where Jesus said to Peter, “[Come and] follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19). I mean, that just resonated in my mind. And we had a missionary in our Lutheran congregation who was a medical doctor and who did her work in India most of the time. So she was almost always in India. She would come back once a year, once every few years, and report. And to me, that was what missionaries do. And I thought, “That’s just not my — I don’t have those gifts and can’t envision myself going to another country on the other side of the globe and doing medical work.” So I always felt like something was missing, because I hadn’t been able to be a missionary and be a fisher of men, as Jesus said.
So, when I joined the Church, right away that became my goal. So when I got to the MTC, I was just thrilled to be there. And the other missionaries in my district were several years younger, and a lot of them were homesick and were fearful and wondering what was going to happen, but I was just gung ho, and all the way through my mission, I just felt that my time was short and I needed to take advantage of every single minute and get out the door, regardless of how tired I was or discouraged, and do the work. So that really helped a lot.
And another thing that I really remember the most about my mission was just the importance of one-on-one and the importance that Jesus put on serving one person at a time. In His earthly ministry, He could have easily just been a public speaker and gone to these huge crowds and done that, and then walked off and ignored people. But He was always looking for the one, the person who needed what He had to give, and was always looking for opportunities to minister.
So, to me, that was my mission experience, was just realizing that I had to connect just one person at a time. It wasn’t about lots of numbers. It wasn’t about preaching to a whole congregation. It was about meeting people in their homes, just one or two people at a time, and sharing what I had to share.
21:10
Jon Ryan Jensen: And then just a few years later, August 2025 comes, and you get to go back to Argentina again, on the year that is marking the centennial of the Church being brought to South America.
What feelings did that bring back to you? And can you describe what it was like to be there again?
21:28
Richard Elliott: It was, as I mentioned earlier, it’s just amazing, because as a missionary, we always heard the stories about the dedication of South America to the preaching of the gospel. And the idea of the choir ever going to Argentina I just thought was just too far-fetched. But the idea of the choir going there and doing it during that centennial year and involving so many of the Church members and making it such a special event that was clearly connected to the growth of the Church, and especially the way that it’s blessed the lives of the people there in South America, that just made it a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and one that I’ll never forget.
It was just so intense, so full of magical experiences and small miracles that clearly were not coincidences, where things just worked out. So it was, again, it was a one-on-one kind of thing, where most of my experiences during that week period had to do with meeting people one at a time and responding to each other and connecting that way.
Of course, the concerts were wonderful, and having the crowds and having that spirit that comes from those large gatherings, that was important. But what I brought home, the things that stood out the most to me, were the interactions one-on-one with people I had known during my mission or people who had joined the Church since then or people who were responding to the occasion and the significance of that.
23:07
Jon Ryan Jensen: I love that. But for those who didn’t get to be in Argentina, when can people come and hear you and some of those who you also serve with here?
Richard Elliott: For the noon day recitals, yeah, those go on every day of the year with only a few exceptions. Just basically, I think Christmas Day and Thanksgiving Day, we generally don’t hold them then, and general conference weekends, of course. Everything is — we’re all —
Jon Ryan Jensen: There are other things happening this week.
Richard Elliott: Yes, yeah, yeah. But pretty much every other day of the year, during the noon hour, from 12 o’clock to 12:30, there’s going to be somebody on the bench, usually here in the Tabernacle, occasionally in the Conference Center. And on Sundays, it’s in the afternoon, at 2 p.m. instead of at noon. And those have been going on for over a century, since about roughly 1911 is when they became daily. Before that, they were offered a few times during the week, mainly for tourists who were passing through town on the trains and had a stopover and wanted to hear the famous organ and the acoustics of the Tabernacle.
24:07
Jon Ryan Jensen: And we hear a lot of people right now who are here talking as they come to visit, but to be here during those recitals, it is silent. People just love listening for that 30 minutes to the organ.
How much do you love having those 30 minutes of peace that people can feel here?
Richard Elliott: It’s a wonderful thing, and we can feel the connection. We can tell if people are engaged, partly by the sound, because the sound of the audience travels up here because of the wonderful acoustics. So we can hear a whisper practically out there. We know if people are into it or if they’re getting antsy or bored with it.
But it’s a great experience. We love sharing the magic of this organ and this room. And I especially just love sharing the pioneer spirit, and that permeates this building and permeates the organ. I always play — “Come, Come, Ye Saints” is a central part of each of those recitals. But when I play it, I like to play on a set of pioneer-era pipes that are at the back end of the Tabernacle, the east end of the building. And those pipes are from 1867. And when I play those pipes, I just imagine that the pioneers are singing their song “Come, Come, Ye Saints” to all of us in the room, and it’s a magical thing. So those of us that work here really sense that their spirit lives on in the construction of the building and the organ.
25:31
Jon Ryan Jensen: And I think that’s an important thing to note. When people come in here and they see the front of the Tabernacle, they might feel like this is just dressing on the Tabernacle, but this is a fully functioning organ. This isn’t just music piped through speakers, right?
Richard Elliott: That’s right, yeah. Although, the gold pipes, people often ask if they all play, and it’s the 10 largest gold pipes in the facade of the Tabernacle organ that play. The others are there for decoration. But there’s another 11,000 pipes behind those gold pipes in the front and about 600 in the back of the room.
Jon Ryan Jensen: Wow.
Richard Elliott: Which is hard for people to imagine. So it’s a lot of tuning for our organ technicians, but a lot of people just can’t believe that there are that many pipes back there, all being blown by air and connected to this state-of-the-art console.
26:24
Jon Ryan Jensen: It’s amazing, and it’s a beautiful sound. And having grown up here, I’ve loved being able to come and hear it, and thanks for being a part of that.
Richard Elliott: There’s lots of interest in the organ and in the choir among young people, but it’s definitely not everybody’s ball of wax, as they say. So, I find that we have school groups come in here, elementary school groups every now and then. And I think once they’ve actually experienced the sound of an organ in person, and they’ve seen it up close and seen all the amazing mechanical and electrical things, and yeah.
But once they get a taste of that, a lot more of them are interested in it. So it’s really a matter of exposure at a young age. So we’re always happy to, when we have young people come here with a school group or with their families and try to at least pull on a few stops and have them play a few notes, and sometimes that’s enough to spark an interest in the organ for them.
And with the choir, we’ve found that especially with Primary songs at general conference, we always do several of the Primary songs when the choir is singing in the first session, and I try to include them every now and then in my noon recitals, and I include them when I’m in my prelude music in our ward, where I’m the ward organist.
Jon Ryan Jensen: Shockingly.
Richard Elliott: So, playing something that they recognize often overcomes that antipathy to the organ.
27:57
Jon Ryan Jensen: Do you have a favorite thing to play?
Richard Elliott: No, when you’re a musician, a professional musician, your teachers just drill into you the fact that whatever piece of music you’re playing at any given moment, that’s your favorite piece of music, and you have to sell it to the audience. So, as a result — and we have thousands of pieces in our repertoire — so you just get to the point where you don’t really have a favorite, and you just have lots of favorites that you would play if nobody was in the room. But most of the time, I’m happy to play just about anything that’s put in front of me, because I can find some element in that music that I want to try to get across to the audience and make that connection one-on-one.
28:39
Jon Ryan Jensen: It’s wonderful for everybody who comes here.
Richard Elliott, thank you for spending some time with us today. You’ve shared your testimony through your music for a lot of years, but now I want to give you that same opportunity that we give to every guest of the Church News podcast and ask you: What do you know now, having had the life experiences that we’ve talked about?
28:59
Richard Elliott: The thing that always comes out most clearly to me is that our Heavenly Father is at the helm, and the Lord is at the helm, that we’re being guided by living prophets, and that especially that Jesus is at the head of the Church, and that if we follow His examples, then we have no need to fear.
So, I was asked a few years ago to write a setting of “Let Us All Press On.” And the message of that hymn has become even more dear to me now and more relevant since we’ve had challenges, like every family has had — with family members, with health struggles and other challenges. But I know that if we keep pressing on and keep the faith, I know that the Lord is good and will bear us up and will fight our battles for us.
And I just know that He’s behind this and that there are no coincidences, for me, in the gospel, that our Heavenly Father has a plan for each of us and that, if we are in tune with the Spirit, we can see His hand in every aspect, really, of our lives.
30:17
Jon Ryan Jensen: Thank you for listening to the Church News podcast. I’m your host, Church News editor Jon Ryan Jensen. I hope you learned something today about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and had your faith in the Savior increase by looking through the Church News window as a living record of the Restoration. Please subscribe, rate and review this podcast so it can be accessible to more people. And if you enjoyed the messages we shared today, please share the podcast with others. Thanks to our guests; to my producer, KellieAnn Halvorsen; and to others who make this podcast possible. Join us every week for a new episode. Find us on your favorite podcasting channels or with other news and updates about the Church on TheChurchNews.com or on the Church News app.
