Shining Night Screening with Northwest Repertory Singers

Northwest Repertory Singers – Photo Courtesy SJCT

San Juan Community Theatre presents a special screening of the documentary Shining Night, A Portrait of Composer Morten Lauridsen and an appearance by some 50 members of the Northwest Repertory Singers on Saturday, September 20 at 7:30 p.m.

The composer, who recently moved to San Juan Island after living on Waldron Island for years, is America’s most frequently performed choral composer and a National Medal of Arts recipient.  Musicologist Nick Strimple describes him as “the only American composer in history who can be called a mystic.”  Shining Night, a film by Michael Stillwater, explores the relationship of art, nature and spirituality, revealing the composer through the lenses of his love for silence and solitude with his passion for music and literature.  Islanders who attended the 2013 Friday Harbor Film Festival will remember that the film received the coveted “Audience Favorite” award.

Northwest Repertory Singers founder and director Paul Schultz is thrilled to bring his choral ensemble to sing for Lauridsen and the San Juan Island audience.  He says they have a special relationship with the composer after performing one of his songs at the American Music Masterpiece Festival in Seattle.  “Morten told us it was the finest performances of Dirait-on [from his Les Chansons des Roses collection] that he’d ever heard,” said Schultz.  “Ever since then we’ve continued to correspond—he’s quite an amazing man.”

 The Business Partner for the evening is Whidbey Island Bank.  Tickets are $20 for adults, $10 for student reserved and $5 student RUSH at the door. The SJCT box office is open Tuesdays through Fridays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturdays from

11 a.m. to 2 p.m.  www.sjctheatre.org or 378-3210.

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