Musician touches hearts

PROVO — Taking a community choir back east to perform in New York's Carnegie Hall once is a privilege and an honor.

Taking them twice is unheard of, something of which Wasatch Chorale conductor Dyanne Riley is keenly aware.

Her husband says it's a tribute to his wife's talent for touching the hearts of her singers.

It's a talent she was almost literally born with.

As a child she was picking out tunes on the piano and adding bass chords, prompting her parents to sign her up for lessons.

Before that, she remembers wanting to conduct the music around her.

"I remember waking up my younger sister and conducting every song we knew," Riley said.

She grew up in San Diego. At 14, she conducted an LDS stake youth choir. She learned to memorize the musical scores to avoid having anything between her and her choir.

During her college days she tied music with her athletic ability as a majorette and baton twirler where in full Aztec regalia she would lead the band out on the football field. She was also a competitive swimmer and is credentialed in California to teach both physical education and music. Later, she taught those two subjects at a San Diego high school and participated in community musical theater. She played 11 major roles. She also performs on the piano, organ and harp.

She met her husband Mike at the San Diego State University institute of religion of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They were married in 1967. She conducted the institute choir and her then-future husband was the only bass singer.

"I knew she was the director, so I showed up," he said.

In 1980 when Riley was completing a master's degree in music at San Diego State they decided to adopt a child, Suzanne, who became their fifth. Riley put her advanced degree on hold until 1992. By then things were shifting in the Riley household. Some of Mike and Dyanne Riley's children had moved to Utah to attend Brigham Young University, and grandchildren were coming.

"I wanted to be part of that," she said.

So after three generations in San Diego, the family relocated to Provo where Riley continued her master's program at BYU.

"It gave me an opportunity I never would have had in San Diego," she said.