Embraced by choral singers, Morten Lauridsen’s music moves audiences worldwide.
Shining Night: A Portrait of Composer Morten Lauridsen celebrates the life and music of the artist named an ‘American Choral Master’ by the National Endowment for the Arts, whom musicologist Nick Strimple describes as “the only American composer in history who can be called a mystic”.
America’s most frequently performed contemporary choral composer, Lauridsen is a National Medal of Arts recipient who spends summers on a remote island in the Pacific Northwest.
Exploring the relationship of art, nature, and spirituality, Shining Night reveals the composer through the lens of his love for the natural world together with his passion for music and literature, interwoven with commentaries from composers, conductors, and singers.
Premiered in Palm Springs on February 7, 2012 as the prelude event to the American Documentary Film Festival, Shining Night has screened at film festivals and performing arts venues across America and Europe, often in combined programs of film and choral singing.
The first biopic made of this iconic composer, its release commemorates the 15th anniversary of the premiere of his masterwork Lux Aeterna and the 25th anniversary of the premiere of Madrigali.
A DVD of the film, published in August, 2012, is distributed in America by Hal Leonard, the world’s largest distributor of written music, in UK by Faber Music, and internationally by Haenssler Classic/SCM. In 2013 it began air- ing on America’s largest public television network, KTSC.
Shining Night is the first episode of In Search of The Great Song, a Song WIthout Borders documentary series exploring and celebrating the transformative power of song.
A giftbook entitled Morten Lauridsen’s Waldron Island Reflections, with pho- tography and text from the film, was published in 2013 by the prestigious music publishing company, GIA Publications, Chicago
A film project of Michael Stillwater and Doris Laesser Stillwater for Song Without Borders www.shiningnightfilm.net
Shining Night: A Portrait of Composer Morten Lauridsen is streaming on-demand as part of the three film documentary series In Search of the Great Song from director Michael Stillwater. Streaming now through February 17th at fhff.org.
