BIOGRAPHY

STUDIES & ORGANIST POSITIONS

The Canadian composer, organist, improviser, teacher and speaker Rachel Laurin (1961-2023) was born in Saint-Benoît, Québec. After her studies at the Montréal Conservatory of Music, she became the assistant of Raymond Daveluy, titular organist of Saint-Joseph’s Oratory (Montréal), a position she held from 1986 to 2002. She was titular organist at Notre-Dame Cathedral (Ottawa) from 2002 to 2006, subsequently leaving this position to devote herself fully to concerts, composition, leading master classes, and presenting lectures.

CONCERTS & FESTIVALS

She gave numerous concerts and recitals in Canada, the United States, and Europe (France, Germany, Italie, Belgium, United Kingdom, Switzerland, etc.).

Under the auspices of the Royal Canadian College of Organists (RCCO), she travelled on more than one occasion across the country to present organ recitals and workshops.

As part of the 1999 Organ Festival Canada national conference presented by the RCCO in Hamilton (Ontario), she was a soloist with the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Boris Brott in Raymond Daveluy’s Concerto for Organ and Orchestra.

In July 2000, Rachel presented Louis Vierne’s Six Symphonies in three recitals on the Beckerath organ of Saint Joseph’s Oratory in Montréal. One of the few organists to play this complete set of works in concert, she performed it again in 2001 at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Ottawa.

At the inauguration of the Létourneau organ at the Winspear Centre in 2002, she premièred Jacques Hétu’s Concerto for Organ and Orchestra with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra under Mario Bernardi. She reprised this major work at the National Arts Centre (Ottawa) in 2008 with the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra, and in Toronto in 2009 with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra.

MASTERCLASSES & LECTURES

As an organist-composer, lecturer and teacher, she was a frequent guest at several Canadian and American universities, including Yale University (New Haven, CT), Houston University (Houston, TX), Saint Thomas University (Minneapolis, MN), Baylor University (Waco, TX), Indiana University of Pennsylvania (Indiana, PA), Mount Royal College (Calgary, AB), University of Saint Lawrence (Canton, NY), Kansas City University (MO), and the University of Alberta (Edmonton, AB).

She also taught organ improvisation at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, the École de musique sacrée d’Épinal (France), and the Mount Royal International Summer School.

WORKS

Rachel Laurin became an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre in 1989, and served as a “house composer” at Leupold Editions from 2006 until her untimely passing in 2023. Composing almost exclusively on commissions, she wrote over one hundred works for solo instruments, chamber music ensembles, orchestra, voice, and choir.

Her compositions are published by North American publishing houses and are regularly performed — notably those for organ — in renowned concert halls and illustrious places of worship at the four corners of the globe.