Dan Laurin

One of the great masters of the recorder, Dan Laurin has remade both the repertory and the form of the instrument. He has a large catalog of recordings, playing music from the Renaissance to the contemporary era. Laurin was born in Jönköping in southern Sweden on January 19, 1960. He studied in Denmark at conservatories in Odense and Copenhagen from 1976 to 1982. His concert career began in 1980 when he was still in school and has never really slowed down, encompassing appearances with groups around Europe and beyond, including the Bach Collegium Japan, the Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble, and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, among others. He has toured not only across Europe but also in Japan, the U.S., Israel, and Australia. In 1986, Laurin made his recording debut on the BIS label with a pair of albums devoted to Telemann's recorder music. He has remained with BIS ever since, recording almost exclusively for that label. An unusual feature of Laurin's career has been his collaboration with the recorder maker Frederick Morgan. This has resulted in both new forms of the instrument and reconstructions of historical recorders, including one made for Laurin's 1999 recording of Jacob van Eyck's Der Fluyten Lust-hof, which filled nine CDs. He has also collaborated with builder Adriana Breukink, who devised the super-powered recorder heard on Laurin's 2015 album Rock that Flute! Laurin's repertory ranges from van Eyck's vast Renaissance compendium to newly commissioned works by such composers as Daniel Börtz, Henrik Strindberg, and Fredrick Österling. By 2022, when Laurin released the album Telemann: Recorder Sonatas on BIS, his catalog as a soloist comprised some 35 items, plus many others on which he appeared as an ensemble member. Laurin is on the faculty at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and Trinity College in London, and he has also taught at the Carl Nielsen Academy of Music in Odense, the Gothenburg Conservatory of Music, and the Royal Conservatory of Music in Copenhagen. ~ James Manheim, Rovi