Member Spotlight: Composer Stanton Lanier

Stanton Lanier composes instrumental music that gives hope to listeners around the world.

Through what he believes is the work of the Holy Spirit, Stanton’s arrangements and original songs point to the beauty of the Creator. His songs have helped others experience the peace that only comes from the Lord.

The award-winning composer writes music for piano, orchestra, and symphony, often offering a cinematic sound. With more than 180 melodies in his collection, he has made it his mission to glorify God and refresh the soul through Scripture-inspired music.

Writing life soundtracks

Stanton lives in Atlanta with his wife, Lorie. They have two adult children, Jacob and Caroline, and one grandchild. Over the past 25 years, Stanton has written one instrumental song every six to eight weeks. His most recent album, “Eternal Beauty: A Cinematic Journey through Psalms,” was released in November and can be streamed on music platforms. Sheet music is also available on his website.

“It’s 12 psalms,” he said. “I did the film scoring for this cinematic essence of orchestral music and melody that can be like a soundtrack for people’s lives.”

“December Peace” and “December Peace II” are his Christmas albums. In 2009, “December Peace” won Best Holiday Album from the ZMR (Zone Music Reporter) Awards, defeating famed artists Enya and Yo-Yo Ma.

“I have unique arrangements of hymns and carols and then some original composing with songs like ‘Silent Night’ and ‘Away in a Manger,’” he said.

Sharing God encounters

Stanton didn’t take his music full time until he was a decade into a career as a financial planner for a Christian business. He would write music on the side and give his CDs to friends, clients, and co-workers.

“Some people said, ‘Hey, can I get a few more? I’d like to get five and give them to friends,’” he said. “So, the sales started to happen and then the testimonials.”

His music started playing on The Weather Channel and people took notice of how it affected them.

“People started to testify to the peace and hope and healing of God,” he said. “There were people in the hospital, and The Weather Channel came on. It gave them hope in the hospital bed. There were people in their home folding laundry and they said God was in the room with them. There were these mysterious, beautiful things that people began to say, so I just started to see from God how His possibility was unlimited and what He could do in the heart of someone. I began to call it a God encounter.”

In the early 2000s, Stanton wrote a song titled “Peace” for a co-worker’s daughter, Haley, who had leukemia at the time. The song was inspired by John 14:27, which says, “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

Haley passed away, but God used the song for the good of others and for His glory.

“‘Peace’ became probably one of my first kind of pieces that just came from the highest Heaven,” he said. “I just knew that Haley knew a peace that she would want us to know.”

That experience led Stanton to create his nonprofit music ministry, Music to Light the World, in 2004, which has donated 75,000 CDs to cancer centers and hospitals. The ministry has also donated more than $50,000 to Family Legacy, a non-profit ministry that gives orphans in Zambia access to nutritious food and a Christian education. At the end of 2025, that same mission and vision to glorify God and refresh the soul through Scripture-inspired music will be called Sky Whisper Sound, LLC.

“The name of my studio is Sky Whisper Sound, which is a phrase expressing God’s voice, His gentle whisper, His still small voice in a noisy world,” Stanton said.

Life surrendered to God

Though Stanton has been playing piano since he was 6, it wasn’t something he thought would be possible as a career until years into other jobs.

He earned a chemistry degree at Georgia Tech and an MBA at the University of Georgia, then worked in consulting and insurance. After surrendering his work to the Lord, God led him to a financial planning career for a Christian company.

The faith-centric part of that job equipped Stanton and Lorie for 10 years before he was ready to become a full-time composer.

“I’m at a stage now where I’m available and willing, but I’m not chasing, I’m not striving,” he said. “This is what God did in my life, that instead of striving to achieve, which I did up until I was 30, God showed me that I needed to abide, to receive.”

The analytical and mathematical factors of financing and chemistry feed into his very detailed composition work.

Co-creating with God

Stanton doesn’t have to be sitting in front of a piano to compose music. He only needs a mind ready to receive the beauty the Lord shows him as he reads or meditates on God’s Word. He can be driving around town or going for a walk and hear music in his head before he touches the first key.

“I don’t have to have a piano or sheet music in front of me,” he said. “I just have this ability that started when I was 14 to find melodies. What’s beautiful is to have God’s Word in front of me and notice how a passage or some verses have themes, and I see if there might be something lyrical that comes out of those words into music.”

It’s praise and worship to our Creator, but Stanton also calls it “co-creating with God.”

“My heart is to create with the Lord,” he said. “He’s the Creator with the big ‘C’ and we’re like little ‘c’ creators.”

When he composes, Stanton said half of the time the notes are singing the verse and the other half he is looking at the verse to see if there’s a tune that might come out of it.

“Sometimes God brings down a tune that’s just speaking that theme,” he said.

Beauty as an apologetic

All of Stanton’s music is instrumental, though he does occasionally use vocals without words. His music heavily features piano but also uses cello, English horn, flugel horn, and orchestra to add cinematic elements to the experience.

Today, he said, his music gets millions of streams on varying music platforms and views on YouTube each month from around the world.

“Here we are 21 years after going full-time and there’s millions of people listening around the world,” he said. “There’s no language barrier because there’s no English song lyric. It’s not American music. It’s not English. It’s the Holy Spirit.”

Stanton has been influenced by Atlanta Bible teacher Ken Boa, who has talked a lot over the last few years about how beauty is becoming a “significant apologetic.”

“It’s not explaining the Gospel or defending the Christian faith like apologetics, but if, as believers, we can point to beauty and talk about beauty in the context of the Gospel, and it is from God and through Christ, (then) beauty can win hearts,” he said. “It can nudge people closer.”

How to pray:

• For God to draw many more hearts toward Christ around the world through Scripture-inspired instrumental music.
• For God’s blessings over Stanton and Lorie’s local church ministry through Bible study and mentoring of engaged couples.
• For God to continue revealing His plans and purposes for Stanton and Lorie with their empty-nest years, fully engaged and joyful in their obedience to Him.