Morten Johannes Lauridsen III (born February 27, 1943) is an American composer and teacher. A

National Medal of Arts The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and Patronage, patrons of the arts. A prestigious American honor, it is the highest honor given to artists and ar ...

recipient (2007), he was composer-in-residence of the

Los Angeles Master Chorale The Los Angeles Master Chorale is a professional Choir, chorus in Los Angeles, California, and one of the resident companies of both The Music Center and Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. It was founded in 1964 by Roger Wagner to be one ...

from 1994 to 2001, and is professor emeritus of composition at the

USC Thornton School of Music The USC Thornton School of Music is a private music school in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1884 only four years after the University of Southern California, the Thornton School is the oldest continually operating arts institution in Los An ...

, where he taught for fifty-two years until his retirement in 2019.

Biography

A native of the Pacific Northwest, Lauridsen worked as a Forest Service

firefighter A firefighter (or fire fighter or fireman) is a first responder trained in specific emergency response such as firefighting, primarily to control and extinguish fires and respond to emergencies such as hazardous material incidents, medical in ...

and lookout on an isolated tower near Mount St. Helens. He attended

Whitman College Whitman College is a private liberal arts college in Walla Walla, Washington. The school offers 53 majors and 33 minors in the liberal arts and sciences, and it has a student-to-faculty ratio of 9:1. Founded as a seminary by a territorial l ...

for 2 years, before traveling south to study composition at the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in ...

with Ingolf Dahl, Halsey Stevens, Robert Linn, and Harold Owen. He began teaching at USC in 1967. In 2006, Lauridsen was named an "American Choral Master" by the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...

. In 2007, he received the

from the president in a White House ceremony, "for his composition of radiant choral works combining musical beauty, power and spiritual depth that have thrilled audiences worldwide." His works have been recorded on more than 200 CDs, five of which have received

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious ...

nominations, including ''

O Magnum Mysterium O magnum mysterium is a responsorial chant from the Matins of Christmas. Text The text is drawn from the Matins of Christmas in the Roman Breviary. ; Latin text: : O magnum mysterium, : et admirabile sacramentum, : ut animalia viderent ...

'' by the Tiffany Consort, ''A Company of Voices'' by Conspirare, ''Sound The Bells'' by The Bay Brass, and two all-Lauridsen discs entitled ''Lux Aeterna'' by the Los Angeles Master Chorale led by Paul Salamunovich and ''Nocturnes'' with the Polyphony choir and the Britten Sinfonia conducted by Stephen Layton. A recipient of numerous grants, prizes, and commissions, Lauridsen chaired the composition department at the

from 1990 to 2002 and founded the school's advanced studies program in film scoring. He has held residencies as guest composer/lecturer at over 100 universities and has received honorary doctorates from

Oklahoma State University Oklahoma State University (informally Oklahoma State or OSU) is a public land-grant research university in Stillwater, Oklahoma, United States. The university was established in 1890 under the legislation of the Morrill Act. Originally known ...

, Westminster Choir College, King's College,

University of Aberdeen The University of Aberdeen (abbreviated ''Aberd.'' in List of post-nominal letters (United Kingdom), post-nominals; ) is a public university, public research university in Aberdeen, Scotland. It was founded in 1495 when William Elphinstone, Bis ...

, and

. In 2014 he was invited to be honorary artistic president of Interkultur/World Choir Games. In 2016 he was awarded the ASCAP Foundation Life in Music Award. In late February 2020, via an update on his Facebook page, Lauridsen revealed he had retired from the Thornton School of Music in the spring of 2019, after having taught classes there for over 50 years. Lauridsen divides his time between Los Angeles and his home in the San Juan Archipelago off the northern coast of Washington State.

Compositions

His eight vocal cycles and two collections—''Les Chansons des Roses'' (Rilke), ''Mid-Winter Songs'' (Graves), ''A Winter Come'' (Moss), ''Madrigali: Six "FireSongs" on Italian Renaissance Poems'', ''Nocturnes'' (Rilke, Neruda, and Agee), ''Cuatro Canciones'' (Lorca), ''Four Madrigals on Renaissance Texts'', ''A Backyard Universe'', ''Five Songs on American Poems'' (Moss, Witt, Gioia, and Agee) and ''Lux Aeterna''—his series of sacred

a cappella Music performed a cappella ( , , ; ), less commonly spelled acapella in English, is music performed by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Rena ...

motets In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the preeminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to the Engl ...

(''

O magnum mysterium O magnum mysterium is a responsorial chant from the Matins of Christmas. Text The text is drawn from the Matins of Christmas in the Roman Breviary. ; Latin text: : O magnum mysterium, : et admirabile sacramentum, : ut animalia viderent ...

'', ''Ave Maria'', ''O Nata Lux'', ''Ubi caritas et amor'', and ''Ave Dulcissima Maria'') and numerous instrumental works are featured regularly in concert by artists and ensembles throughout the world. ''O Magnum Mysterium, Dirait-on'' (from ''Les Chansons des Roses''), ''O Nata Lux'' (from ''Lux Aeterna''), and ''Sure On This Shining Night'' (from ''Nocturnes'') are best-selling choral octavos. His musical approaches to the texts he sets are diverse, ranging from direct to abstract in response to characteristics (subject matter, language, style, structure, historical era, etc.). His Latin sacred settings, such as the ''Lux Aeterna'' and motets, often reference

Gregorian chant Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainsong, plainchant, a form of monophony, monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song in Latin (and occasionally Greek language, Greek) of the Roman Catholic Church. Gregorian chant developed main ...

, as well as

Medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

and

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

techniques while blending them with contemporary sounds. Other works such as the ''Madrigali'' and ''Cuatro Canciones'' are highly chromatic or

atonal Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a tonal center, or key. ''Atonality'', in this sense, usually describes compositions written from about the early 20th-century to the present day, where a hierarchy of harmonies focusing on ...

. His music has an overall lyricism and is tightly constructed around melodic and harmonic motifs. Referring to Lauridsen's

religious music Religious music (also sacred music) is a type of music that is performed or composed for Religion, religious use or through religious influence. It may overlap with ritual music, which is music, sacred or not, performed or composed for or as a ri ...

, the

musicologist Musicology is the academic, research-based study of music, as opposed to musical composition or performance. Musicology research combines and intersects with many fields, including psychology, sociology, acoustics, neurology, natural sciences, f ...

and conductor Nick Strimple said he is "the only American composer in history who can be called a mystic, ..Lauridsen's probing, serene work contains an elusive and indefinable ingredient which leaves the impression that all the questions have been answered." From 1993, Lauridsen's music rapidly increased in international popularity, and by the end of the century he had eclipsed Randall Thompson as the most frequently performed American choral composer.

Vocal works

Recordings

Over 200 recordings of works by Morten Lauridsen have been released, including five that have received

Grammy The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious a ...

nominations. CDs:

Sheet music sales and performances

Morten Lauridsen is currently one of America's most performed composers, with hundreds of performances each year throughout the world in venues including

Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhattan), 57t ...

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 ...

Kennedy Center The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, commonly known as the Kennedy Center, is the national cultural center of the United States, located on the eastern bank of the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. Opened on September 8, ...

, Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Vatican,

Sydney Opera House The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue Performing arts center, performing arts centre in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Located on the foreshore of Sydney Harbour, it is widely regarded as one of the world's most famous and distinctive b ...

, and

Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an Anglican church in the City of Westminster, London, England. Since 1066, it has been the location of the coronations of 40 English and British m ...

. Over one million copies of his scores have been sold and his ''Dirait-on'', ''O Magnum Mysterium,'' and ''O Nata Lux'' have become best-selling octavos. Recordings of Morten Lauridsen's compositions are featured regularly on radio broadcasts throughout the United States, and he is a frequent interview guest on radio and television programs, including a KCET '' Life and Times'' program, the national broadcast of "A Portrait of Morten Lauridsen" on ''First Art'', and a nationally broadcast Christmas Day feature on NPR's ''

Weekend Edition ''Weekend Edition'' is a set of American radio news magazine programs produced and distributed by National Public Radio ( NPR). It is the weekend counterpart to the NPR radio program ''Morning Edition''. It consists of ''Weekend Edition Saturday ...

'' with Scott Simon. He has been profiled in several extended articles, including in the ''Los Angeles Times'' "Calendar", ''Seattle Times'', ''Choral Journal'', ''Choir and Organ'', Chorus America's ''Voice'', ''Fanfare Magazine'', and the ''Wall Street Journal''. He has received over four hundred commission requests, including from Harvard University, the American Choral Director's Association, and the Pacific Chorale, and is a frequent guest lecturer and Artist/Composer-in-Residence. His principal publishers are

Peermusic Peermusic is a United States–based independent Music publisher (popular music), music publisher. History Ralph Peer, a field recording engineer and Artists and repertoire, A&R representative for Victor Records, went on a scouting trip to Brist ...

(New York/Hamburg) and Peer's affiliate, Faber Music (London).

Teaching life

In addition to these positions, Lauridsen has served as artistic advisor on the boards of the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Dale Warland Singers, I Cantori (New York), USC Scoring for Films/TV Program, National Children's Chorus, Creative Kids Education Foundation, Volti (San Francisco Chamber Singers), New York City Master Chorale,

Jacaranda ''Jacaranda'' is a genus of 49 species of flowering plants in the family Bignoniaceae, native to tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas while cultivated around the world. The generic name is also used as the common name. The species ' ...

, and Angeles Chorale.

Publications

"It's a Still Life That Runs Deep: The Influence of Zurbaran's Still Life With Lemons, Oranges and a Rose on Morten Lauridsen's Composition 'O Magnum Mysterium'"
''Wall Street Journal''
February 21, 2009 Foreword to
Evoking Sound
' by James Jordan, GIA Publications, 2009 "Morten Lauridsen on Composing Choral Music," a chapter in ''Contemporary Choral Music Composers'', GIA Publications, 2007 Liner notes for ''Randall Thompson—The Peaceable Kingdom'', Schola Cantorum of Oxford, Hyperion Records "Remembering Halsey Stevens," National Association of Composer Journal, 1990

Documentary

The 2012 documentary film ''Shining Night: A Portrait of Composer Morten Lauridsen'' portrays the composer at his Waldron Island retreat and in rehearsals in California and Scotland. Commentaries about the composer by poet

Dana Gioia Michael Dana Gioia (; born December 24, 1950) is an American poet, literary critic, literary translator, and essayist. Since the early 1980s, Gioia has been considered part of the highly controversial and countercultural literary movements w ...

, conductor Paul Salamunovich, composer/conductor Paul Mealor, composer Alex Shapiro, and conductor Robert Geary, along with performances by the San Francisco Choral Society, University of Aberdeen Choral Society and Orchestra, Con Anima Chamber Choir, and Volti, are featured. Works include ''O Magnum Mysterium'', ''Lux Aeterna'', ''Madrigali'', ''Dirait-on'', and ''Nocturnes'', with soundtracks by Polyphony and the Britten Sinfonia (conducted by Stephen Layton), The Singers: Minnesota Choral Artists (conducted by Matthew Culloton), and the Dale Warland Singers (conducted by Dale Warland).

References

External links

Composer's websitePublisher bioWall Street Journal review by Bruce CampbellFanfare Magazine Review, Prayer
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lauridsen, Morten 1943 births Living people 20th-century American classical composers 20th-century American male musicians 21st-century American classical composers 21st-century American male musicians American male classical composers American people of Danish descent American choral composers Singers from Washington (state) People from Colfax, Washington People from Beaverton, Oregon People from San Juan County, Washington USC Thornton School of Music alumni USC Thornton School of Music faculty United States National Medal of Arts recipients