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Morten Lauridsen

Morten Lauridsen

Session 7

Friday March 11th - 2:00pm

RSS Composition: A Conversation with Morten Lauridsen for Composers

Session Description

Clinician Bio

The music of Morten Lauridsen occupies a permanent place in the
standard vocal repertoire of the Twenty-First Century. His eight vocal
cycles, instrumental works, art songs and series of sacred Latin motets
are performed throughout the world and have been recorded on over two
hundred CDs, including several that have received Grammy nominations.
Mr. Lauridsen (b. 1943) served as Composer-in-Residence of the Los
Angeles Master Chorale from 1994-2001 and is currently Distinguished
Professor of Composition Emeritus at the University of Southern California
Thornton School of Music where he chaired the Department of
Composition for many years and founded the Advanced Studies Program
in Film Scoring. He currently serves as Honorary Artistic President of
INTERKULTUR/World Choir Games.
He has held residencies at over one hundred universities and is the
recipient of five honorary doctorates and the 2016 ASCAP Foundation
“Life in Music” Award. A prize- winning documentary by Michael Stillwater,
Shining Night – A Portrait of Composer Morten Lauridsen, was released in
2012 (songwithoutborders.net).
In 2006 Lauridsen was named an “American Choral Master” by the
National Endowment for the Arts and in 2007 he was awarded the
National Medal of Arts, the highest artistic award in the United States, by
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.”
A native of Portland, Oregon, he was a Forest Service fire-fighter and
lookout on a remote tower near Mt. St. Helens before attending Whitman
College and USC. He now resides at his home in the San Juan Islands of
Washington State. More information is at mortenlauridsen.net.

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