A picture of the new cast of "Lucy Mack Smith: Beloved Mother in Israel." From left to right: Travis Lunt, Hannah Jenson, Molly Flake, Bonnie May, Kaylan Richardson Holman, Brittney Stradling, Maddy Barazoto, and Red Miller.
The original cast of "Lucy Mack Smith: Beloved Mother of Israel." From left to right: Carrie Jean Crum, Joan Johns, Elizabeth Clouse, Mary Oliver, Ethel Lunt, Gail Lunt Thompson, Erma Lunt, and Alva Peeler.
A picture of the new cast of "Lucy Mack Smith: Beloved Mother in Israel." From left to right: Travis Lunt, Hannah Jenson, Molly Flake, Bonnie May, Kaylan Richardson Holman, Brittney Stradling, Maddy Barazoto, and Red Miller.
Travis Lunt photo
The original cast of "Lucy Mack Smith: Beloved Mother of Israel." From left to right: Carrie Jean Crum, Joan Johns, Elizabeth Clouse, Mary Oliver, Ethel Lunt, Gail Lunt Thompson, Erma Lunt, and Alva Peeler.
It’s no secret that the York Valley has a lot of history and a deep and rich culture, but did you know the town also had a resident composer of operas?
On August 14, the late Duncan-Franklin resident Jenna Brinkerhoff Mosley’s opera, “Lucy Mack Smith: Beloved Mother in Israel,” will be performed at the Virden Community Center in Virden, New Mexico for local community members.
Mosley died in 2019, but she left a lasting impact on the York Valley through her art and her deeds.
Born in Safford in 1941 to a family of early settlers of Thatcher, Mosley started taking piano and later accordion lessons starting at age six. From the beginning, she excelled, said her brother, Spencer Brinkerhoff Jr.
“She was very talented,” Brinkerhoff said. “I was way deep in her shadow.”
Mosley went on to get a bachelor’s degree in music from Northern Arizona University and later a master’s degree from the University of Arizona.
In the 1960’s and 70’s Mosley taught music within the Duncan Unified School District. Later she taught private music lessons from her home in Franklin where she also worked on choir, solo voices and religious music and operatic original compositions and arrangements.
In 1980, Mosley premiered her first opera, “Lucy Mack Smith: Beloved Mother in Israel,” at the Old Virden Church in Virden. The opera, which included eight singers, a piano player and a narrator in its premier, is about the life and times of the mother of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“The church was at the center of her life,” Brinkerhoff said about his sister. Brinkerhoff said his sister participated in numerous church music competitions in Salt Lake City and around the country and won a lot of them, but “she was always a very gracious, pleasant person.”
While growing up in Duncan, Travis Lunt took piano lessons with Mosley for 13 years. He described Mosley’s opera as her magnum opus.
After being approached by the Duncan stake of the LDS church to write an opera about Smith, Lunt said Mosley wrote the 90-minute opera in just three months. Lunt said Mosley found inspiration from Smith’s life and connections to her own life.
“There’s an inspiration aspect to a lot of it.” Lunt said, “It’s not quite a musical opera or musical theatre, but it lives somewhere in the middle.”
After performing the opera in 20 different cities and towns in Arizona, New Mexico and in Colonial Juarez in Mexico, Mosley wrote one more opera, this time about Christmas.
Mosley passed away in 2019, but her love of music and her generosity inspired Lunt to not only revive her opera, but to educate himself and compose music. He considered a friend and a mentor.
Now a music education student at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, Lunt has organized six singers and a narrator, most of whom he met at Eastern Arizona College and now attend UVU and Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, to perform Mosley’s operatic ode as a tribute to Mosley, her life and her music.
“She was always willing to give.” Lunt said. “Always giving back to the community. I was really inspired by that.”
Lunt, who will be performing on piano at the event, said he had planned to restage the opera last year, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced him to reschedule the performance until this year.
Although it will have few singers then the original performance, Lunt said the arrangements of the opera were basically kept the same as Mosley had written them.
“People who knew her music will hear her in it,” Lunt said.
“It’s just pleasant to the ear and very enjoyable,” Brinkerhoff said about the opera.
The event, which starts at 6 p.m. Arizona time, Lunt said, is free to the public.
“We’ll make room for as many people that want to come,” Lunt said.
