Morten Lauridsen

“A true American icon” in the words of his dean, USC Distinguished Professor Morten Lauridsen is one of the most performed composers in the United States. His works are heard in concert regularly around the world and have been recorded on more than 150 CDs – three of which have garnered Grammy nominations.

Lauridsen specializes in choral composition – combining his love of music with his love of poetry – and has set to music verses by Italian Renaissance poets as well as more modern poems by writers ranging from Rainer Maria Rilke to Federico Garcia Lorca to Robert Graves. So perhaps it’s no coincidence that people wax poetic about his work.

“Stunningly crafted,” “luminous,” “heart-scrubbing,” “sheerly pleasurable” and “rapt” are a just few of the terms reviewers have used to describe Lauridsen’s pieces.

His colleague Nick Strimple has characterized 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…” (Choral Music in the Twentieth Century, Amadeus Press 2002).

And when Lauridsen received the National Medal of Arts in November 2007, the official citation called out “his composition of radiant choral works combining musical power, beauty and spiritual depth that have thrilled audiences worldwide.”

Raised in Portland, Oregon, Lauridsen began learning music from his mother at a young age. Yet when he enrolled at Whitman College in Washington, he chose not to take any music classes during his freshman year. It wasn’t until he experienced a summer of solitude as a forest service lookout on an isolated tower near Mt. St. Helens that he changed his mind. He returned to Whitman and took every music class he could. During his junior year, he transferred to USC to study composition with Halsey Stevens, Ingolf Dahl, Robert Linn and Harold Owen.

A three-time alumnus – he has bachelor’s, master’s and doctor of music degrees from USC – Lauridsen has been a professor of composition at the USC Thornton School of Music for more than 30 years and chaired the school’s composition department from 1990 to 2002. He also served as composer-in-residence with the Los Angeles Master Chorale from 1994 to 2001, and has held residencies as a guest composer/lecturer at over three dozen universities.

With all of his success, Lauridsen still longs for the serenity of the Pacific Northwest. He divides his time between Los Angeles and his summer cabin on a remote island off the northern coast of Washington state.

• Morten Lauridsen’s faculty Web page
• Morten Lauridsen’s home page
• For a story about Lauridsen receiving the National Medal of Arts, please click here