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The music of Morten Johannes Lauridsen, composer-in-residence of the Los Angeles Master Chorale from 1994-2001 and professor of composition at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music for more than 30 years, occupies a permanent place in the standard vocal repertoire of the 20th century. His seven vocal cycles - Les Chansons des Roses (Rilke), Mid-Winter Songs (Graves), Cuatro Canciones (Lorca), A Winter Come (Moss), Madrigali: Six "Fire Songs" on Renaissance Italian Poems, Nocturnes, and Lux Aeterna - and his series of sacred a cappella motets (O Magnum Mysterium, Ave Maria, O Nata Lux, Ubi Caritas et Amor and Ave Dulcissima Maria) are featured regularly in concert by distinguished ensembles throughout the world. O Magnum Mysterium, Dirait-on (from Les Chansons des Roses) and O Nata Lux (from Lux Aeterna) have become the all-time best-selling choral octavos distributed by Theodore Presser, in business since 1783.
In speaking of Lauridsen's sacred works in his book, Choral Music in the Twentieth Century, musicologist and conductor Nick Strimple describes Lauridsen as "the only American composer in history who can be called a mystic, (whose) 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 century's end he had eclipsed Randall Thompson as the most frequently performed American choral composer."
His works have been recorded on over a hundred CDs, three of which have received Grammy nominations, including O Magnum Mysterium by the New York-based ensemble, Tiffany Consort, led by Nicholas White; and two all-Lauridsen discs entitled Lux Aeterna by the Los Angeles Master Chorale conducted by Paul Salamunovich (RCM) and Polyphony with the Britten Sinfonia conducted by Stephen Layton (Hyperion). His principal publishers are Peermusic (New York/Hamburg) and Peer's affiliate, Faber Music (London).
A recipient of numerous grants, prizes and commissions, Dr. Lauridsen chaired the Composition Department at the USC Thornton School of Music from 1990-2002 and founded the School's Advanced Studies Program in Film Scoring. At USC he has received the Phi Kappa Phi Creative Writing Prize, the Thornton School Outstanding Alumnus Award, The Ramo Award, the Lambda Delta Citation for Teaching Excellence and the Dean's Award for Professional Achievement. He has held residencies as guest composer/lecturer at over two dozen universities. A native of the Pacific Northwest, he worked as a Forest Service firefighter and lookout (on an isolated tower near Mt. St. Helens) before traveling south to study composition with Halsey Stevens, Ingolf Dahl, Robert Linn, and Harold Owen. Dr. Lauridsen now divides his time between Los Angeles and his summer cabin on a remote island off the northern coast of Washington State.
In 2006, Morten Lauridsen was named an "American Choral Master" by the National Endowment for the Arts. Further information regarding Dr. Lauridsen may be found at mortenlauridsen.com.
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