Rachel Laurin is featured on a new recording, Music by Rachel Laurin, on the Raven label (OAR-943), which includes her music for organ and harp, organ and French horn, as well as fourteen solo organ works.
Laurin plays all of the solo organ works on the CD, and is joined by harpist Caroline Léonardelli for the three-movement Fantasia for Organ and Harp, op. 52, commissioned for the 2010 AGO national convention in Washington, D.C. The Sonata for Organ and Horn, op. 60, is played by organist Karen Holmes and hornist Damian Rivers-Moore. Karen Holmes commissioned the work for performance at the 2011 RCCO national convention in Hamilton, Ontario.
Solo organ works include Epilogue, op. 50 (first-prize winner of the Marilyn Mason New Organ Music Competition 2009), Prelude and Fugue in F Minor, op. 45 (winner of the Holtkamp-AGO Composition Award 2008), and Twelve Short Pieces, Volume 2.
The organ heard on the CD at St. Anne’s Church, Ottawa, was built in 1917 by Casavant Frères, using most of the organ built in 1914 by La Compagnie Canadienne d’Orgues, a firm that coexisted 1910–1930 with Casavant in St. Hyacinthe, Quebec. It was rebuilt by Casavant in 1988 and revoiced in 2011 by Alain Gagnon Pipe Organs, Kingston, Ontario.
Rachel Laurin was born in Quebec, studied at the Montreal Conservatory, and was associate organist of St. Joseph’s Oratory, Montreal (1986–2002), and titular organist of Notre Dame Cathedral, Ottawa (2002–2006). She now devotes her time to composing, recitals, master classes, and lectures. For information: www.ravencd.com.
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