Desc: Shining Night: A Portrait of Composer Morten Lauridsen: Directed by Michael Stillwater. With Morten Lauridsen, Dana Gioia, Paul Salamunovich, Robert Geary. A tribute to a living legend, celebrating the life and music of the artist whom musicologist Nick Strimple has called 'the only American composer in history who can be called a mystic'. National Medal of Arts recipient and most frequently performed American choral composer, Morten Lauridsen spends summers on a remote island in the Pacific Northwest. Featuring intimate interviews in California, Scotland and Waldron Island, Washington, interwoven with performances of his masterworks and commentaries by music contemporaries. Revealed through the lens of his passion for nature and music, Lauridsen expresses a presence of fierce compassion and unwavering dedication to the craft of composition. First episode in the film series, 'In Search of The Great Song'.