Lansing McLoskey

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.

Among McLoskey's numerous commissions are those from 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.

Lansing McLoskey (born 1964) is an American composer of contemporary classical music.

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 purchasing an electric guitar from a flea market.

Following high school, McLoskey studied abroad as a student at Holte Gymnasium outside of Copenhagen, Denmark, where he learned to speak Danish.

Although his tastes were eclectic, he 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.

McLoskey applied to UC Santa Barbara while on his mission.

Initially planning on majoring in piano performance, McLoskey 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 from piano 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,” said McLoskey.

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) as his first representative piece.

During his Masters’ studies at the USC Thornton School of Music, McLoskey continued both his composition work as well as his love for 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 a home automation and systems integration company in Santa Monica called Sound Solutions.

His 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 & 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, CA.

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 Mario Davidovsky and Bernard Rands.

He also continued to pursue his love for 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) fame, 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 still pursuing all these interests, his wife told him, “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 all his Danish musical research.

Still, McLoskey remained busy with a variety of projects, including 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 called Latter-Day Skates for eight years.

McLoskey married Kathleen Jordan in 1995.

They have three children: Kyrie, born 1996; twins Degan and Kai, born 1999.

As a practicing member of the LDS Church, McLoskey does not smoke or drink alcohol or coffee.