Born on August 11, 1961, in St-Benoît, near Montréal, Rachel Laurin died in Ottawa on August 13, 2023. After early studies with her mother, she entered the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal where she studied organ with Daveluy (1980-1986) and piano with Raoul Sosa. She also studied composition privately with Daveluy. In 1986, upon graduating, she became the latter’s assistant at the Oratoire and remained there until 2002. After a brief stint as organist of the Basilique-Cathédrale Notre-Dame in Ottawa, she devoted the remainder of her life to performances, teaching, and composition. Because she concertized less frequently in her last years, it is easy to forget that Laurin was a formidable organist herself; she performed the most challenging works not only with remarkable technical prowess, but also with great gusto and joie-de-vivre.
In 1995, with fellow composers Anne Lauber and Alain Payette, Laurin and Daveluy founded Les Mélodistes Indépendants, a group which rejected serialism and identified with “music where melody dominates and plays an essential role in communication.” Until their very last works, Laurin and Daveluy remained committed to writing accessible music rooted in extended tonality and modality, and firmly believed that works had to be composed with the audience in mind, thereby rejecting so-called academic music.