Douglas Lawrence
Melbourne organist Douglas Lawrence is Director of Music at The Scots' Church and Teacher of the Organ at the University of Melbourne. He founded the Choir of Ormond College and directed it from 1982 to 2006.
He frequently performs as a soloist for major music organisations within Australia, and his concert career has taken him throughout most of the western world. He has released a number of recordings through the Move label which have received outspoken praise from reviewers.
Douglas Lawrence completed a Master's Degree in Music at Melbourne University in 1969. He then spent two years in the Concert Class of the Vienna Academy, and during that time began a concert career which has taken him throughout most of the western world.
He undertakes a major concert tour of Europe each year and has played at many prestigious venues, among them St Mark's Basilica (Venice), St Paul's Cathedral (London), the Bavo Church (Haarlem), Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche (Berlin), Stephanskirche (Vienna), and the Cathedral of Sion, location of the world's oldest playable organ. In 1979 he played the inaugural concerts on the organs of the Sydney Opera House and Melbourne University's Melba Hall, and in 1982 the first solo recital on the organ in the newly opened Melbourne Concert Hall.
In Melbourne he is Director of Music at The Scots' Church and Teacher of the Organ at the University of Melbourne. He was Artistic Director of the Melbourne International Festival of Organ and Harpsichord.
His recordings include The Best of Pachelbel, Buxtehude, A Baroque Collection and Reverberations 1 and 2. They span organ music from the earliest times until the present day, from solo organ to ensembles with didgeridoo and electronic tape, and include new works especially composed for him.
He has appeared for the ABC as soloist in the Major Subscription Series, Youth Concerts and Contemporary Series, and as a soloist with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra on radio and television. He has an active concern for the promotion of contemporary music of all genres.
He is much sought after as a judge in organ playing and choral competitions, and his opinion is highly regarded in the field of organ design for churches and concert halls. As organist or conductor he has given something over 70 first performances, an activity that continues with new works scheduled for premiering each year.
Douglas Lawrence is featured on the following titles
Magnificat
Douglas Lawrence plays a magnificent recital on the four-manual Rieger organ he designed for The Scots' Church, Melbourne, drawing out the instrument’s full range of colour and power.
Laughing
The internationally acclaimed Choir of Ormond College, directed by Douglas Lawrence, turns to the lighter side of a cappella singing across jazz, madrigal and spiritual repertoire.
The 12 Days of Christmas
The Choir of Ormond College sings carols long held in affection around the world, and pairs them with newer works, accompanied by renowned Australian pianist Stephen McIntyre.
Credit: Program notes
The Choir of Ormond College Live
A live retrospective for the Choir of Ormond College’s twenty-first year, gathering concert recordings from 1985 to 2000 under Douglas Lawrence, from Britten’s Festival Te Deum and Fauré’s Requiem to Bach, Palestrina, Poulenc and lively encores.
The Rieger at Scots'
So just what does one play to demonstrate the resources of a large, beautifully voiced new organ? Douglas Lawrence sets out the wide tonal palette of the Rieger at The Scots' Church, Melbourne, completed in 1999.
Beatus Vir
Recorded live on their 1999 European tour, the Choir of Ormond College under Douglas Lawrence presents small-scale sacred works in up to eight parts by Palestrina, Gesualdo, Handl, Gabrieli, Monteverdi, Stanford and Rheinberger.
Kodály Missa Brevis
Recorded on their 1997 European tour in Northern Italy and Germany, the Choir of Ormond College sings Kodály’s Missa Brevis, with works by Tye, Howells and Bach.
Credit: Liner notes
Music from Heaven
The Choir of Ormond College, directed by Douglas Lawrence, in a highly acclaimed programme of unaccompanied sacred works by Allegri, Byrd, Poulenc, Britten, Barber and J.S. Bach.
Bolero: Music for Organ 4 Hands
Douglas Lawrence and Elizabeth Anderson play organ four hands on the Melbourne Concert Hall’s French-style Casavant. Bolero gathers favourites and rarities arranged or written for two players at one console.
Bamboo Organ
Douglas Lawrence and the Manila Chamber Orchestra. Manila's suburb of Las Piñas boasts the world's only organ with pipes made from bamboo. Solo pieces and Handel's Organ Concerto in G minor show the instrument's range; a bonus disc interviews the restorer.
Narrator: Interviewer
I Heard the Owl Call My Name
The highly acclaimed recording of the Choir of Ormond College's European tour. Includes the amazing choral soundscape I Heard the Owl Call My Name by Australian composer Philip Nunn.
I Can Tell The World
Saucy Purcell rounds, madrigals, drinking songs, spirituals and English folk settings from one of Australia's finest choirs, directed by Douglas Lawrence.
Bach Byrd Britten
The Choir of Ormond College, directed by Douglas Lawrence, presents Bach, Byrd and Britten. Bach’s motet Lobet den Herrn, alle Heiden and Byrd’s Mass for Four Voices stand beside Britten’s Five Flower Songs and A Ceremony of Carols.
We Wish You a Merry Christmas
The Choir of Ormond College, directed by Douglas Lawrence, presents a varied selection of twenty-eight Christmas carols. Familiar favourites sit beside Bach and Pachelbel organ pieces and twentieth-century settings.
When David heard that Absalom was slain
The Choir of Ormond College specialised in liturgical music of the 16th and 20th centuries. This recording also includes psalm settings, among them Allegri’s Miserere, a setting of the penitential Psalm 51 once reserved for the Sistine Chapel in Holy Week.
The Choir of Ormond College Melbourne
Directed by Douglas Lawrence, who led chapel music at Ormond College, Melbourne, for more than twenty years, this recording presents the college choir in English church music of the sixteenth and twentieth centuries.
Ding Dong Merrily on High
A baker's dozen of well-loved traditional Christmas carols featuring children's and men's voices. Recorded in the magnificent acoustics of St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne.
A Baroque Collection
Douglas Lawrence plays Baroque organ masterworks on Jürgen Ahrend’s acclaimed instrument in Monash University’s Robert Blackwood Hall, a programme spanning Zipoli to Buxtehude.
Festival of Organ Masterpieces
Douglas Lawrence plays favourite organ repertoire on the instrument of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne, spanning nearly three centuries of transcriptions and original works.
15 Favourite Christmas Carols
Christmas carols without choir or singers, heard in the acoustics of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne. Cathedral organ, brass ensemble and tubular bells carry fifteen familiar carols in special arrangements by Christopher Willcock.
Sequenza and Other Works by Ian Bonighton
Ian Bonighton’s death at 33 in 1975 cut short one of the most distinctive young voices in Australian composition. This remastered survey gathers his music for choir and organ with tape, percussion, string quartet, solo horn and piano.
Pachelbel, His Canon and Much More
Douglas Lawrence plays the Ronald Sharp organ in the Ormond College Chapel, Melbourne, in favourite Baroque organ works by Pachelbel, Buxtehude, Scheidt, Camidge and Greene.
Reverberations
Originally issued on two LPs and even quadraphonic tape in the early 1970s, this double CD is a limited re-issue of Reverberations One and Two: contemporary works for organ, brass, voices, didjeridu and electronics.
Sing to the Lord, ye Heavenly Hosts
The Choir of The Scots' Church offers sacred music from sixteenth-century Palestrina to twenty-first-century Australian composer Andrew Batterham, crowned by a rare performance of Widor's Mass for choir, baritone choir and two organs.
Praise the Lord his Glories Show
Sacred music from the 16th century through Baroque and Romantic repertoire to Afro-American spirituals, sung by one of Melbourne's finest choirs under Douglas Lawrence.
Douglas Lawrence is featured on the following titles
Bach Motets
The Australian Chamber Choir, directed by Douglas Lawrence, performs motets by J.S. Bach with works by Johann Michael Bach and Johann Christoph Bach.
Gold
The Australian Chamber Choir, directed by Douglas Lawrence, performs works by eight Australian composers. From Gordon Kerry’s Shakespeare setting to Malcolm Williamson’s English Eccentrics, the programme turns individual voices into pure gold.
Keys to Heaven
The Australian Chamber Choir opens with the first recording of Agata della Pietà’s cantata Ecce nunc, written in eighteenth-century Venice by an orphan of the Ospedale della Pietà and reconstructed by Elizabeth Anderson. Sacred works by Palestrina and Allegri complete the programme.
A Baroque Christmas
The music on this CD is a historical Christmas “pick of the pops”, from the late 1400s to the end of the Baroque period. Directed by Douglas Lawrence, the Australian Chamber Choir offers a programme recorded live in concert during their 2019 European tour. The 17 tracks are drawn from lesser-known seasonal works, championing a sublime repertoire that is all too often neglected.
Soul
Douglas Lawrence OAM leads the Australian Chamber Choir through sacred music spanning Renaissance polyphony, early Baroque splendour and African-American spirituals.
Douglas Lawrence also appears on
Bright Tracks
Winner of the 1998 ABC Classic FM Listeners’ Choice Award, this double CD gathers chamber music by Brenton Broadstock, one of Australia’s most established and respected composers.
Fandango
Flamboyant Spanish and French Baroque keyboard music from harpsichordist Elizabeth Anderson, joined by Douglas Lawrence on chamber organ for Soler’s two-keyboard concerto and Couperin’s musettes.
Sydney Opera House Concert Hall Grand Organ
Historic recordings from the 1979 inaugural recital series that launched the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall Grand Organ, Ronald Sharp’s vast mechanical-action instrument.
Other credits
The Way of the Cross
Dupré's depictions of the fourteen Stations of the Cross, with his Variations sur un Noël, are played by Dr Robin Batterham on the 4/68 Rieger organ of The Scots' Church, Melbourne.
Merry Christmas
Elizabeth Anderson and friends put a fresh twist on Christmas carols: eight tracks packaged as a Christmas card, with a vibrant cover and space for a personal inscription.
Italian Organ Masters
Major master organist Sergio de Pieri offers an enjoyable and authoritative survey of Italian organ repertoire by lesser-known masters, from Renaissance dances and ricercari to Zipoli and Frescobaldi.
Douglas Lawrence is a member of
Australian Chamber Choir
The Australian Chamber Choir was founded by Douglas Lawrence in July 2007.