Lansing McLoskey (born 1964) is an American composer of contemporary classical music. His Zealot Canticles: An Oratorio for Tolerance was a winner of the 61st Annual Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance by the ensemble The Crossing. McLoskey serves as a Professor of Music at the Frost School of Music in Miami, Florida. He has been commissioned by Guerilla Opera, Copland House, The Fromm Foundation, The Barlow Endowment, N.E.A., The Crossing, ensemberlino vocale, New Spectrum Foundation, Ensemble Berlin PianoPercussion, Passepartout Duo, the Boston Choral Ensemble, and Kammerkoret NOVA.
Early life
McLoskey was born to Robert and JoAnn McLoskey in 1964. His grandfather, Heinrich "Henry" L. Hansen was born in Denmark. Growing up in Cupertino, California, Lansing came from a musical family. His mother minored in piano performance at Cal State Fresno, his father played saxophone, and his grandfather, Illinois congressman Robert T. McLoskey, played violin in a regional orchestra. As a teenager, McLoskey learned to play piano, guitar, and saxophone. He started writing rock songs at 14 after buying an electric guitar at a flea market. After high school, McLoskey studied abroad as a student at Holte Gymnasium in Denmark, where he learned to speak Danish.
Although his tastes were eclectic, McLoskey found himself drawn to music outside the mainstream, including Prog Rock, Punk Rock, Industrial, Goth, No-Wave, and Post-Punk. He immersed himself in the hardcore punk scene in the San Francisco Bay Area, and played in several punk, surf, goth-dance, and experimental bands in high school and college, including The Suburban Lemmings, The Minority, The Bruces, Spangled Blew, and a "punk opera" project he co-wrote called Stanly in the Sewer. Around this time, McLoskey had a spiritual awakening and dropped his musical pursuits to serve an LDS mission in Denmark. Education
McLoskey applied to UC Santa Barbara while on his mission. Initially planning on majoring in piano performance, he was taken aback when he heard, in the same week, Luciano Berio's Sinfonia, Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, and "Non al suo amante" by the trecento Italian composer Jacopo da Bologna. These experiences inspired him to shift his focus to composition. They also marked the beginning of his love for early music. "Early music performance was one of the most important things in my life from undergraduate through my doctoral studies and beyond, and it started at UC Santa Barbara", McLoskey has said.McLoskey interview with Joseph Sowa, May 8, 2018. He joined Capella Cordina, the early music choir at UCSB directed by Alejandro Planchart, changed his major to composition, and completed a BA in composition in 1989. McLoskey considers his string quartet flux in situ (1989, rev. 1991) his first representative piece.
During his Master's studies at the USC Thornton School of Music, McLoskey continued his pursuits in both composition and early music. He studied composition with Stephen Hartke and Donald Crockett, and counterpoint with Morten Lauridsen. Along with several master's students in early music performance, McLoskey founded the vocal sextet Clamores Antiqui. He also studied early music voice at The Amherst Early Music Festival and Workshop.
After completing his master's, McLoskey worked for four years at Sound Solutions, a home automation and systems integration company in Santa Monica. The company let him take time off to pursue music. In 1993 he was an American-Scandinvavian Foundation Fellow at Det Kongelige Danske Musikkonservatorium (the Royal Danish Academy of Music), where he studied composition with Ib Nørholm and contemporary and Renaissance choral techniques with composer/conductor Bo Holten and Ars Nova Copenhagen. In 1994 he attended the Advanced Masters Program at the Aspen Music Festival and School, where he worked with Jacob Druckman and Bernard Rands, which led to McLoskey’s attending Harvard University for his doctorate. He also taught music theory and aural skills at The Crossroads School for the Arts in Santa Monica.
During this time, McLoskey met, dated, and married his wife, Kathleen Jordan. In 1995, the couple moved to Boston, both to pursue degrees: McLoskey, a Ph.D. at Harvard, and his wife, her undergraduate, master's degree and artist diploma in opera performance. As a composition student at Harvard, McLoskey studied with Rands and Mario Davidovsky. He also continued to pursue early music and his interest in contemporary Danish music and composers. He took courses in early music performance at the Longy School of Music, studied voice with mezzo-soprano Laurie Monahan of Ensemble P.A.N. (Project Ars Nova), published a book on 20th-century Danish composers, presented papers and published an article on 20th-century Danish music, and was awarded the Einar & Eva Haugen Award for Scandinavian Studies.
After having three children while he pursued all these interests, his wife told McLoskey, “You can't be a composer, singer, conductor, musicologist, and a father and husband. Something's got to give.” Accordingly, he cut back on his early music performance and Danish musical research. Still, McLoskey remained busy writing his dissertation; giving private lessons; teaching at Harvard, Wellesley, and Longy; holding two church jobs as a singer and organist; and running a skateboard company, Latter-Day Skates, for eight years.
Personal life
McLoskey married Kathleen Jordan in 1995. They have three children. A member of the LDS Church, McLoskey does not smoke or drink alcohol or coffee. He is an avid surfer, cyclist, and fly fisherman.
Career
After completing his Ph.D., McLoskey taught for three years as a Lecturer at Harvard, and had Visiting Professor appointments at Wellesley College and the Longy School of Music. In 2005, McLoskey joined the faculty of the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music, where he is a professor of composition and theory. His students include American composers Peter Van Zandt Lane, Ben Morris, and Benjamin Webster, Italian composer Alessandra Salvati, and Brazilian composer Rodrigo Bussad. While at Frost, he formed, conducted, and sang with The Other Voices, a vocal ensemble performing medieval, Renaissance, and 20th/21st century repertoire.
McLoskey's music has been performed in 22 countries on six continents. He has received over 50 national and international composition awards, prizes, and fellowships, including the 2011 Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. McLoskey also holds the distinction of being the only composer in the history of the Contemporary Music Festival to win both the orchestral and chamber music competitions (awarded by two independent, blind juries).
He has been commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts, Pew Charitable Trusts, the Barlow Endowment, The Fromm Foundation, Aaron Copland House, Meet The Composer, ASCAP & SCI (the Society of Composers, Inc.), the MATA Festival, The Crossing, King's Chapel (Boston), New Spectrum Foundation for Miranda Cuckson, Guerilla Opera, the International Joint Wind Quintet Project, Network for New Music (Philadelphia), The Alba Music Festival (Italy), the soundSCAPE Festival (Italy), Passepartout Duo (Berlin), Ensemble Berlin PianoPercussion, Calyx Trio, ensemberlino vocale, Kammerkoret NOVA (Oslo, Norway), Splinter Reeds, [Switch~ Ensemble], Liber, Dinosaur Annex Ensemble, the newEar Ensemble (Kansas City), TAWA Sax Quartet (Lima, Peru), The Calcutta Chamber Orchestra, internationally award-winning violinists Miclen Laipang and Linda Wang, oboist ToniMarie Marchioni, violist Leticia Oaks-Strong of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and many others.
McLoskey has lectured and given masterclasses at over 30 schools and festivals, including the Aspen Music Festival & School, the Aspen Institute, the Tanglewood Institute, Universität der Künste Berlin, Conservatorio Nacional de Música (Mexico), and two dozen universities. He has been the Composer-in-Residence at the Alba Music Festival (Italy), the soundSCAPE festival (Italy), the Charlotte New Music Festival, the Missouri Chamber Music Festival, the Carolina Chamber Music Festival, Piccolo Spoleto Festival, and the Webster University Young Composers Workshop.
While in Boston, McLoskey was a member and then president of Composers in Red Sneakers. He has also served on the Board of Advisors of The Barlow Endowment for Music Composition, the Center for LDS Arts, and the Bogliasco Foundation.
Notable performances
International festivals to include McLoskey's music include The 2017 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK); XXXV Foro Internacional Música Nueva, Mexico City, Mexico; The Dimlicht Festival, Antwerp, Belgium; ClarinetFest 2018 (International Clarinet Conference), Ostend, Belgium; The Gaudeamus Festival 2021, Utrecht, Belgium; Now Hear This Festival, Edmonton, Canada; International Voila Congress, Guelph, Canada; Il Jornadas Musicales de Invierno 2018 (Winter Music Days Festival), Talca, Chile; The XXX Festival de Musica Contemporànea Habana, Cuba; The I Festival Nacional de Metales de Bogotá, Colombia; Nordic Saxophone Festival, Aarhus, Denmark; The Lieksa Brass Festival, Finland; The World Saxophone Congress, Strasbourg, France; 2021 Zodiac International Music Competition, France; Amicidella Musicadi Modena AdAdM Festival, Modena, Italy; The Contrasti Festival, Trento, Italy; The Alba Music Festival, Italy; Skammdegi Festival, Ólafsfjördur, Iceland; Myrkir Músíkdagar (Dark Music Days Festival), Reykjavik, Iceland; 2020 Hovlandfestivalen, Oslo, Norway; XVIII International Jazz Festival, Lima, Peru; XVIII Ciclo de Música Contemporánea, Málaga, Spain; ENSEMS International Festival of Contemporary Music of Valencia, Spain; 2019 İTÜ/MIAM Piano Festival II, Istanbul, Turkey; 2019 ACMF (Ashburton Chamber Music Festival), Ashburton, UK.
His Suite hypnagogique was premiered by pianist Scott Holden at Carnegie Hall on June 29, 2018, as part of the Mormon Arts Center Festival. Spectrum in New York City held a two-day "McLoskey Festival" on April 15-16, 2016.
Awards, fellowships, honors
2022 Copland House Fellow & Award Zealot Canticles: An Oratorio for Tolerance, 2019 GRAMMY Award for Best Choral Performance by The Crossing; Donald Nally, conductor The Captivity of Hannah Duston, Finalist for the 2020 AML (Association for Mormon Letters) Award for Drama 2019 Bogliasco Foundation Fellow 2nd Prize, the 2019 American Prize, for Zealot Canticles Winner, the 2019 Analog Choral Composition Competition Winner, the 2018 Boston Choral Ensemble Composition Commission Competition 2018 Copland House Award and recipient of their annual commission The 2016 American Prize for Choral Composition, for Qumran Psalms 2016, Winner, the Robert Avalon International Competition for Composers, for Discipline MacDowell Colony fellow, 2011 and 2015 2014, First Prize, the Red Note Festival Composition Competition, for Specific Gravity: 2.72 2014 GMA (Global Music Award) Bronze Medal for What We Do Is Secret What We Do Is Secret, first round submission for a 2013 Grammy for Best Contemporary Classical Composition 2013 Aaron Copland Recording Grant 2012, Grand Prize Winner, The Chatham Baroque Composition Competition, for Haute Dance The 2011 Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, awarded to a “composer of exceptional gifts.” Winner, 2011 International Joint Wind Quintet Composition Competition Winner, The International Music Prize for Excellence in Music Composition 2011, for What We Do Is Secret First Prize, 2009 Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra Composition Competition, for Requiem, v.2.001x Winner, 2009 “Music Now” Composition Competition, ISU New Music Festival, for Processione di lacrime Winner, 2009 First Annual newEar Composition Competition, for Requiem, v.2.001