American composer Morten Johannes Lauridsen is National Medal of Arts recipient and was composer-in-residence of the Los Angeles Master Chorale from 1994–2001.

A native of the Pacific Northwest, Lauridsen worked as a Forest Service firefighter and lookout on an isolated tower near Mt. St. Helens. He attended Whitman College before traveling south to study composition at the University of Southern California with Ingolf Dahl, Halsey Stevens, Robert Linn, and Harold Owen. He began teaching at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music in 1967 and has been on their faculty ever since.

In 2006, Lauridsen was named an “American Choral Master” by the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2007 he received the National Medal of Arts from President George W. Bush “for his composition of radiant choral works combining musical beauty, power and spiritual depth that have thrilled audiences worldwide.”