Rachel Laurin
Rachel Laurin (born August 11, 1961) is a Canadian organist, composer and music educator living in Quebec. She was born in Saint-Benoît. Laurin studied organ with . She went on to study at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal with , Raymond Daveluy and Raoul Sosa. In 1985, she received the McAbbie Foundation scholarship and, in the following year, the Bourse d'excellence Wilfrid-Pelletier. She has performed in Canada, the United States and France. She has received the Conrad-Letendre scholarship five times. From 1986 to 2002, she was assistant organist at Saint Joseph's Oratory. In  1988, she started teaching at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal. From 2002 to 2006, she was titular organist at Notre Dame Cathedral in Ottawa. Laurin started composition lessons at age 19 with Raymond Daveluy. She has been the "house composer" at Wayne Leupold Editions since 2006. Laurin currently only composes commissioned pieces. Her very first commissioned piece was requested by Donald Sutherland and his wife Phyllis Bryn-Julson. The piece was premiered at an AGO regional convention in Pittsburgh in 1987. In 2008, she received the Holtkamp-AGO Composition Award. In 2009, she was awarded first place  in the Marilyn Mason New Organ Music Competition. Laurin won the 2022 Pogorzelski-Yankee Composition Competition. The American Guild of Organists granted her their Distinguished Composer Award in 2020. Selected compositions. Solo Organ Works