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Franklin Ashdown

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Franklin Ashdown (b. 1942) is a composer and medical doctor; he has pursued dual careers for the past three decades. He studied piano for twelve years, and was "recruited" to play the organ for his local congregation at age thirteen. He later studied organ with Judson Maynard and James Drake, and was privately coached in composition by Fred Tulan of San Francisco and Leonard Raver of New York's Julliard school. A widely-published composer of organ and choral music, his works have been performed in venues ranging from Grace Cathedral in San Francisco and the the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City to St. Paul's Cathedral in London and the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. His compositions have been featured on APR's "Pipedreams," NPR's "All Things Considered," and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's CBS broadcast, "Music and the Spoken Word." Leonard Raver and Stephen Burns recorded his Requiem for the Challenger for trumpet and organ on the Classic Masters label, and James Welch has included some of Ashdown's solo organ music in his series of CD recordings for various labels. A resident of Alamogordo, New Mexico, Dr. Ashdown enjoys a full life as an internist, composer, and organist-choir director for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.