Submitted by Friday Harbor Film Festival.

Friday Harbor Film Festival’s next offering in The Director Series is Shining Night: A Portrait of Composer Morten Lauridsen. It begins with a free online showing Thursday, May 19 from 6:30 to 9 pm at www.fhff.org. From May 20 – June 1 the film will be available on-demand for $1.95.

This film offers a glimpse into the life and music of the San Juan Island resident considered to be one of the greatest living choral composers and certainly one of the most frequently performed. Lauridsen is a recipient of the National Medal of Arts and was also named an ‘American Choral Master’ by the National Endowment for the Arts. The documentary features intimate interviews with him in California, Scotland, and Waldron Island, interwoven with performances of his masterworks in America and Scotland and commentaries by music contemporaries. It gives the viewer a rare opportunity to spend a little time with this extraordinary man, who has derived his inspiration from the natural world. As Lauridsen has observed, “You can hear that its serenity, calmness and beauty have crept into my music.” “Life is a mystery. There is something bigger than us out there. And how do we tap into that? You go down deep.”