A songwriter from South Jordan is making her mark in the Olympics via music.
While not competing in any sports events in Paris, Emily Sanderson's music has been featured in several Olympic promotional videos and television pieces focused on the games. As part of its Olympic coverage, NBC used one of her songs, "Greatest of All Time," to accompany a video introducing the women's gymnastics team, which won a gold medal as the best all-around squad.
"It's a dream come true for me," said Sanderson, an independent songwriter who goes by EJ Sara in her musical endeavors. "That's so awesome to have a placement like that."
Sanderson says she grew up playing piano and singing in choirs, studying music therapy at Utah State University. She now creates music from her home in the Daybreak area of South Jordan and has had plenty of it appear in high-profile places — ads for Volvo, in Disney+ and Netflix programs, the television production of the NCAA women's basketball championship game and much more.
Now it's getting attention on the global stage with the snippet in the NBC video on the gymnastics team and in several other Olympics promotional videos, some of which aired in Canada and across Europe. NBC's Today Show also used "Greatest of All Time" as background music in a profile piece on LeBron James, one of the stars of the U.S. Olympic basketball team.
"I'm super excited," said Sanderson, who crafts her creations with partner Nathan Kidd, a musician and songwriter in Alberta, Canada. Sanderson typically handles lyrics and melodies when they work together, while Kidd handles production and instrumentation.
Sanderson is also a fitness professional who teaches group exercise classes, pilates, strength training and more. As such, themes of putting out a Herculean effort, passion and hard work were on her mind in coming up with "Game Face," the album she co-created with Kidd that has been tapped to serve as the soundtrack for many of the varied Olympic videos.
"It's just natural to write songs about being motivated to work hard," she said.
The "Game Face" songs — rock music — feature heavy, driving beats and touch on themes like "being a force to be reckoned with," "playing hard," "coming out on top" and more, according to the album description.
At any rate, as an independent songwriter, Sanderson had no idea who might tap the music after she and Kidd placed the album on the Pop Machine music catalog. The online catalog is operated by APM Music, which calls itself "the world's leading creative music house and production music library" and markets music for use in ads, movies, television shows and other video programming.
She only learned "Greatest of All Time" had been used in the NBC video on the women's gymnastics team after her husband saw it by chance as he was watching Olympic programming.
"I saw it live, and I was like, 'Whoa, wait,'" said Mark Sanderson, who teaches at West Hills Middle School in West Jordan. "It came up, and it took me a few seconds to realize what it was."
Emily Sanderson also taps services that advise her when her music is used. "Game Face" songs were also used for promotional videos about Canada's Olympic swimming team and the nation's women's rugby team. Another promotional video for the Olympics featuring her music, a song called "Shake it Up," has aired in Denmark, Italy and the United States.
"It's just playing all over the place, just a general hype video for the Olympics," she said.
Sanderson gets royalties or fees when her music is used and isn't sure, at this early stage, what sort of paycheck she'll get out of the Olympics. But money aside, to see her music used in connection with the women's gymnastics team, in particular, has left her glowing.
“I’m just so excited about that because they’re amazing,” she said.