The “EFY Medley,” a popular medley among the youth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, perfectly blends the faith’s songs “As Sisters in Zion” and “We’ll Bring the World His Truth” without clashing. And yet, the medley arrangement was not originally planned to be a medley at all.
In 1999, Utah-based composer Michael R. Hicks’ original assignment was to create an arrangement of the single hymn “As Sisters in Zion” for Latter-day Saint young women to practice and sing during that summer’s EFY program (a weeklong summer program that has now transitioned into FSY or For the Strength of Youth conferences).
Receiving the assignment, Hicks recently told the Deseret News that he quickly began studying the hymn’s lyrics and melody — which he admitted he had previously been unfamiliar with since the hymn is primarily sung by Latter-day Saint women.
“I read through the lyrics and I played through the melody, and I realized that this was a special song with a great message,” he said.
His arrangement of the hymn ultimately included a counter melody to be sung simultaneously with a verse of “As Sisters in Zion.” The counter melody’s lyrics were based on the Latter-day Saint Young Women theme at the time, and when Hicks and a small group of his friends performed the song for the program’s Young Women coordinators, they loved it.
So did the program’s Young Men coordinators, Hicks said. They promptly asked him if he could compose a separate arrangement of the Latter-day Saint Primary song “We’ll Bring the World His Truth.”
With these two songs fresh in his mind, Hicks said he quickly began thinking of them together, wondering if the two melodies originally written by Latter-day Saint composer Janice Kapp Perry could be strung together and sung simultaneously.
Hicks tested his idea at home, and to his amazement, “it worked out perfectly.”
It was serendipity.
What has been interesting, Hicks said, is that while the program’s coordinators certainly never thought of the two songs in terms of music theory and melodic compatibility, they somehow managed to pick out the only two songs Hicks has yet found that can be sung simultaneously without their melodies clashing or their chords conflicting with each other.
“Believe me, I’ve tried to find other hymns or primary songs … and I’ve yet to find any that work that way,” he said. “I really feel like Heavenly Father wanted these two songs to be sung together like this at EFY and now at FSY, and it’s been great to see the reaction the youth have had in singing it.”
For some youth, the medley has been a “great birthplace” for their faith and testimony, Hicks said. For others, it has been a catalyst for helping them want to go on a mission. And for many others, it has helped cultivate a unifying feeling of respect for one another.
“The young men would make comments about how they were able to see the young women as daughters of God,” Hicks said. And “the young women would see the young men’s potential to fulfill their responsibilities as well.”
Working on the medley and seeing its impact, Hicks said he has learned that “God really is at the helm” and that he can use imperfect people to “do things that can make a difference in people’s lives, whether it’s one person … or a whole congregation of 1,200 youth who stand and sing together.”
Hicks reveals his creative compass
Hicks sits at his piano and computer. The first step he takes in composing an arrangement is to dive into the existing Latter-day Saint songs or hymns he is working with.
He dives into the melodies, the harmonies, the lyrics, and — most importantly — the Spirit and message of the pieces he is working with, he recently told the Deseret News as he sat on a piano bench in his Draper work studio.
This was the first step Hicks took when he began handling the pieces that would eventually intertwine to create his EFY Medley in 1999, and it was certainly the first step Hicks followed as he prepared a new piano songbook of simple arrangements of hymns alongside his young adult daughter.
“Music is a wonderful thing, and it’s been a blessing in my life,” Hicks said, describing how music has influenced generations in his family. But music is just a tool, “another arrow in (his) quiver,” to share his testimony of Jesus Christ and his gospel, he added.
“When it comes to doing arrangements of hymns, I always try to stay true to the spirit of that message, the spirit of that hymn,” Hicks said. “I’m not a big fan of making (an arrangement) more musical than it is spiritual.”
Hicks prefers keeping his arrangements focused on the message, he said. That is his creative compass.
And that compass appears to be tied to the experiences Hicks recalls having while listening to inspiring music as a youth. Faith-based music “moved” him as a teen, Hicks said, and inspired his desire to “one day write music that could move others” like it did him.
“That became my passion,” he said. “And I was so excited at the thought of being able to write something that might be as influential in their lives and in their faith as it was for me.”
A new medley represents the heart of Hicks’ new piano songbook
More than two decades and several compositions later, Hicks decided to take on the sacred task of writing a new medley for his longtime friend Nicole Davis as she and her family grieved the death of her 9-year-old son, Kaden Davis.
Her son was “so kind and loving,” possessing great faith in prayer and a desire to serve alongside the Savior, Nicole Davis told the Deseret News from her home in Maryland. Her son died one week and a day after he was diagnosed with leukemia in 2022. Searching for a song that could help her and her family process their grief, Nicole Davis reached out to Hicks.
She had been specifically looking for a medley of Latter-day Saint songs “A Child’s Prayer” and “God Be With You Till We Meet Again” for one of her daughters to play on the piano. But finding none, Nicole Davis contacted Hicks, and he offered to fiddle with the songs and see what he could come up with.
Hicks ultimately did write an 85-measure medley of the two songs, and Nicole Davis expressed gratitude to Hicks for “giving this beautiful gift” to her family as she recounted the new medley’s backstory to the Deseret News.
“I am grateful that he was so inspired to do something that would help us so much,” she said, adding that the song has given her and her family “peace beyond our understanding.”
Two of her kids — including her late son’s twin — likewise expressed that the song has helped them process their feelings, as they were young when their brother Kaden Davis passed away.
Listening to the song “brings back memories of my brother,” his twin sister, Kelina Davis, told the Deseret News in a virtual interview. “It brings me comfort because I know that I’ll see him again, and this is just temporary … it’s not a forever thing.”
Hicks said he wrote the medley with a photo of his friend’s late son on his computer screen and a hope that the arrangement he was writing would help bring peace to his friend and her family in a difficult time. “The mission of this arrangement was to help bring peace to their family,” he said.
He also said that he later asked Nicole Davis for permission to include the new medley in a songbook he was preparing alongside his daughter, who is currently studying commercial music at BYU. The songbook, titled “Peace,” would include simple piano arrangements of hymns striving to bring peace into people’s homes, and Hicks said he felt the medley represented the “heart of the project.”
Nicole Davis accepted Hicks’ request, and now the medley — along with 11 other piano arrangements — sits inside a spiral-bound songbook for early intermediate pianists.
With so much hate, hurt and confusion in the world, “our goal was to hopefully bring peace into the home,” said Leah Hicks, Michael Hicks’ daughter and collaborator on the songbook project. “We wanted to bring peace into people’s lives, but also make it accessible to people who want to play,” regardless of their piano level.
The songbook’s arrangements — three of which Leah Hicks composed — include piano arrangements of Latter-day Saint hymns, such as “In Humility, Our Savior” and “I Need Thee Every Hour,” as well as a handful of hymns the Church of Jesus Christ has been adding to its growing new hymn book, “Hymns — For Home and Church.”
‘Jesus Christ speaks through music’
The songbook project was the first time Leah Hicks and her father worked together in this way, she told the Deseret News.
Prior to this project, Leah Hicks and her father had performed at firesides and other events together, and she had even voiced her father’s vocal arrangement of “Jesus Said Love Everyone,” which he released in his 2023 album, “Believe.”
Working in a composer role alongside her father this time around, however, enabled Leah Hicks to learn new insights into his work, approach and focus.
Michael Hicks said he was able to talk logistics with her about composing arrangements, but that he was also able to teach her that arranging sacred melodies is “not about impressing people but (about) blessing people.”
Leah Hicks learned from her father’s mentorship and example that “the message is just what’s always going to be important,” she said. She then connected this insight from her father to a discovery she made during her missionary service in Phoenix, Arizona, from 2023 to 2024.
“Jesus Christ speaks through music,” Leah Hicks said, describing her personally “life-changing” discovery.
“It doesn’t have to be this huge, profound thing,” she added. “He wants it to be simple and (for) people to understand. He is the power — not the music.”
Several verses of scripture interspersed throughout the songbook help reinforce its focus on a message of peace in Christ, she later explained.
Believing is ‘a choice’
Considering her advice to others grieving or experiencing hardship, Nicole Davis affirmed that believing is “a choice.”
She recalled that at one point following the death of her son, she sat driving in her car and thought to herself: “What if all of this isn’t true? And what if I just choose to be done with all this?”
Her realization in that moment was that the choice was up to her.
“I made the choice that I would believe and that I would have faith,” she said. “And after I made that choice, then even more healing happened.”
For her, choosing to believe looked like praying, studying the scriptures and the words of modern prophets, and seeking answers to questions she previously thought she fully understood. “What happens after you die?” and “Why are we here on earth?” were some of the questions she pondered and studied.
It has been helpful to “make the choice to believe and to have faith,” she said, thus encouraging others to make that choice, pray, and seek to study and understand the doctrines and principles of the gospel.
Returning to the medley written in honor of her late son, Davis also said she hopes the medley will bring peace to other families that have had children pass away or “have children who are missing from their lives.”
“(I hope) that they know the Lord is there,” she said. “We’re on earth to experience all the things that we need to learn to become more like Heavenly Father.”