"For the most luminous, moving choral music currently working its way into the repertoire, you must sample the Lux Aeterna, Chansons des Roses and O Magnum Mysterium of Morten Lauridsen with Paul Salamunovich conducting the Los Angeles Master Chorale on RCM.  Lux Aeterna, Lauridsen's five-movement, non-liturgical requiem, is one contemporary work everyone wants to program. . . Get to know this music. It may be coming soon to a choir near you!"
–Philip Greenfield, in "Overview: Choral Masterpieces," American Record Guide

"I hold these truths to be self-evident: 1) Rainer Maria Rilke was a genius. 2) Morten Lauridsen is a genius. 3) Lauridsen’s a cappella setting of Rilke’s Contre Qui, Rose is one of the most singularly beautiful pieces of vocal music in the history of Western Civilization. 4) Polyphony’s new Hyperion recording of Contre Qui, Rose is a Record To Die For. (The rest of the disc isn’t too shabby, either)"
– Stereophile

"The first recording of Lux Aeterna by the Los Angeles-based composer Morten Lauridsen demonstrates that it IS possible for important contemporary music to speak directly to the human heart. Composed in 1997 for the LA Master Chorale, Lux Aeterna is a rich, complex, intensely moving piece that people will be listening to for a long time to come."
–Jim Svejda, National Public Radio

Music by Morten Lauridsen occupies a permanent place in the standard vocal repertoire of the Twentieth-Century. His seven major vocal cycles--Les Chansons des Roses (Rilke), Mid-Winter Songs (Graves), Cuatro Canciones (Lorca), A Winter Come (Moss), Madrigali: Six “Firesongs” on Renaissance Italian Poems, Nocturnes (Rilke, Neruda and Agee) and Lux Aeterna--and his series of sacred a cappella motets (O Magnum Mysterium, Ave Maria, O Nata Lux and Ubi Caritas et Amor) are featured regularly in concert by distinguished ensembles throughout the world. O Magnum Mysterium, O Nata Lux (from Lux Aeterna) and Dirait-on (from Les Chansons des Roses) have become the all-time best selling choral octavos distributed by Theodore Presser, in business since 1783.

The recent book, Choral Music in the Twentieth Century by 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 Brtitten Sinfonia conducted by Stephen Layton (Hyperion).

Morten Lauridsen was named an "American Choral Master" by the National Endowment of the Arts in 2005 and in 2007 he received the National Medal of Arts 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." He is currently Distinguished Professor of Composition at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music.

Born in 1943, Lauridsen served as Composer-in-Residence of the Los Angeles Master Chorale from 1995-2001 and has been Professor of Composition at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music since 1972. A native of the Pacific Northwest, he worked as a Forest Service fire-fighter and lookout (on an isolated tower near Mt. St. Helens) before traveling south to study composition with Halsey Stevens and Ingolf Dahl. Mr. Lauridsen now divides his time between Los Angeles and his summer cabin on a remote island off the northern coast of Washington State. Further information regarding Mr. Lauridsen may be found at mortenlauridsen.com.

• Hyperion's 2nd all-Lauridsen CD, "Nocturnes," was released in February. Melinda Bargreen writes in the Seattle Times: "The Northwest-born composer Morten Lauridsen, renowned for his choral music, is the subject of this sumptuous CD by the English vocal ensemble Polyphony, under the direction of Stephen Layton. Their glorious sound and subtle interpretations do complete justice to Lauridsen's scores, including the 'Mid-Winter Songs,' 'Les chansons des roses' and the brand-new, rapturous 'Nocturnes,' of which this disc is the premiere recording. The Polyphony performances make it clear why Lauridsen is today's preeminent choral composer; you'll hear every nuance of voicing and harmony, enveloped by a choral sound that is shaped by a masterly hand, with quicksilver changes and contrasts. The Britten Sinfonia is featured in the "Mid-Winter Songs"; the other works are a cappella, sung here at a standard against which all subsequent choral recordings should be judged."
  
  
• The National Endowment For The Arts has recently named "Madrigali:  Six 'FireSongs' on Italian Renaissance Poems" and "O Magnum Mysterium" on its list of "American Masterpieces:  Three Centuries of Artistic Genius", works to be performed by choral ensembles in the United States receiving performance grants from the NEA.