Concert to celebrate 10 years of Bestor in Logan
Tradition.
It’s a word Kurt Bestor said has been creeping into his music.
Bestor’s Christmas concert this year in the Ellen Eccles Theatre will be his 10th concert in Logan.
About 10 years ago, Bestor said people from Logan started asking him why he didn’t perform in Cache Valley. The trip valley residents made to Salt Lake City every year was long and sometimes dangerous through Sardine Canyon.
And so a tradition started.
Bestor said his Christmas concerts this year will be a little different.
“It’s time to have people think again about the brotherhood of men,” he said. “It makes me sad with what’s going on in the world.”
Bestor said if there’s any theme to his concerts this year, it will be “Peace on Earth.”
“For every bomb that’s dropped, I’d like to drop a musical bomb,” he said.
Also this year, Bestor said he’s researching how to say the word peace in as many languages as possible.
Bestor said his life has revolved around music since he can remember.
“I don’t think you can really find a start to my music,” he said. “I was surrounded by it growing up.”
Bestor said his grandfather played the trumpet and passed that talent on to his grandson. He started playing the piano at age 7.
“I hated practicing,” he said.
That is, he hated it until one day when his mom sat on the bench next to him and told him to play a sunrise.
“I played something – probably terrible,” he said. “And, I’ve been playing sunrises since.”
Bestor was born in Wisconsin, where he lived for his first seven years. After spending a year in Colorado, the family settled in Utah, where he grew up in Orem – attending Orem High School and eventually BYU, where he majored in music composition.
Throughout those years, he said, he had many great teachers.
“If not just a product of genetics, I’m also a product of all the great teachers I’ve had,” he said while rattling off the names of his first piano teacher, junior high band teachers, high school band teachers and college professors.
“My high school band teacher let me play my own music,” Bestor said. “He believed in me.”
After college, Bestor still wanted to play his own music.
“I’ve always been a little bit off the beaten path,” he said. “My professor said that was OK though.”
Bestor said his journey into Christmas music started in 1988.
“I needed to get out there,” Bestor said, so he disguised his voice and called radio stations to pump up his first Christmas concert in Salt Lake City.
Apparently it worked, because his first concert was “very successful.”
Since then, his music has been heard every Christmas season, not only in Utah, but thanks to his musical participation in the 1988 Calgary Olympics, in the rest of the world. The music he helped score for ABC in 1988 won him an Emmy.
Bestor also helped write music for the 1998 Atlanta Olympics and 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. His “Prayer of the Children” is sung around the world, including anniversaries of the Columbine High School shootings.
He has also written music for TV, movie and radio. According to his Web site, www.kurtbestor.com, he has scored more than 30 pieces for films and 40 for TV – programs and commercials.
Of those pieces, Bestor said his work for ABC’s Monday Night Football stands out to him the most. His music opened the show every Monday night.
“I actually made money while I lay on the couch,” he said.
Writing music for Bestor is usually a project. But, it’s a project he enjoys.
“I’m always on deadline,” he said. “I force myself to feel like that – to kick myself into a creative mode – every time I write.”
One day he hopes to have the luxury of writing when he desires, not when he must.
Bestor said he loves music – all kinds, not just Christmas stuff.
“I’m very into world music,” he said. “Stuff from African, Japan, Ireland …”
In his car, there is a 10-disc changer. He said at any given moment, CD’s in his player might include Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons,” a South African CD, one of his, something from the Dixie Chicks and one of Dave Matthews.
Bestor said his concert this year in Logan will include about 60 percent of his hits and 40 percent new material.
“The audience knows there will be some surprises,” he said with a smile. “It’s going to be a good year.”
Bestor’s concert at the Ellen Eccles Theatre is Dec. 3 at 8 p.m. Tickets are available in the theater’s ticket office at various prices.
-emilieholmes@cc.usu.edu