Douglas Lawrence is honoured in the Australia Day 2020 Honours List with an AM for significant service to the performing arts, particularly to chamber choirs.
Douglas Lawrence founded the Australian Chamber Choir in 2007 after 25 years nurturing singers, composers and conductors as Master of the Chapel Music at Ormond College. Continuing with the ACC he has presented over a hundred concerts in Europe and many more in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, regional Victoria and NSW. Wherever they perform, Douglas Lawrence and the singers of the ACC are met with the resounding praise of audiences and critics alike.
“I was ten years old when my dad took me to a performance of Stainer’s Crucifixion at Kew Baptist Church. The pews were full and we stood at the back. I was overawed by the music and when the choir reached the climax with the words “Crucify, crucify”, the voices and full organ filled the church and my legs turned to jelly. It was then I decided that I wanted to learn the organ”.
Douglas Lawrence took up his first paid music job at the age of seventeen, when he became the organist and director of the choir at Knox Presbyterian Church in Ivanhoe (Melbourne).
On completing a Primary Teacher’s Certificate at Toorak Teachers’ College, he taught for a year in a Traralgon primary school. “I loved teaching, but I wouldn’t have given up my job with the choir at Knox for anything, so I always spent my weekends in Melbourne”. The following year, he enrolled in a Bachelor of Music at the University of Melbourne.
In 1969, after completing a Master of Music there, he studied for two years at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (Vienna Musikhochschule) under renowned Austrian organist Anton Heiller. His conducting teachers were Hans Swarovski and Hans Gillesberger, then Director of the Vienna Boys Choir.
On his return to Australia, Douglas held various posts – at the University of Melbourne (teacher of organ, Lecturer in Church Music at the United Faculty of Theology, Organist at Ormond College), Director of Music at Toorak Uniting Church, then St Aidans’ North Balwyn, Artistic Director of the Melbourne International Festival of Organ and Harpsichord and of the Southern Grampians Promenade of Sacred Music (Hamilton).
A successful career as a concert organist continued, with annual concert tours of Europe. Douglas was invited to play in many of Europe’s most prestigious series, including St Paul’s and Westminster Cathedrals London, Notre Dame Paris, Kaiser Wilhelm-Gedächtniss-kirche, Berlin, Bonn Minster, Bavo Church Haarlem and Laurenskerk Alkmar (Netherlands), St Stevens Cathedral Vienna, Marmo Church Copenhagen and on the oldest playable organ in the world, in Sion Castle, Switzerland.
In Australia, Douglas played inaugural recitals on new organs at Melba Hall at the University of Melbourne (1978), the Sydney Opera House (1979), and gave the first solo recital on the organ in Hamer Hall, Melbourne (1982).
In 1983, Douglas founded the Choir of Ormond College, University of Melbourne, to sing weekly evensong and Sunday services at the College. At that time, Ormond was the only Melbourne college choir singing weekly services. He immediately incorporated the new choir in an international touring schedule. During his time with Ormond the choir undertook eleven concert tours, including New Zealand, Japan, Singapore and Europe.
At the end of his tenure at Ormond College, in 2007, he founded the Australian Chamber Choir and continues an annual series of Australian concerts and a biennial international touring schedule with that ensemble. Numerous return invitations and accolades in the national and international press are testament to the ACC’s standing. Concerts have included St Martin-in-the-Fields London, Thomaskirche Leipzig, Berlin, Bonn and Lausanne Cathedrals, St Germain Geneva and the Augustinerkirche Vienna.
Douglas currently combines his position directing the ACC with the position of Director of Music at the Scots’ Church, Melbourne, where he plays the organ and directs the choir for weekly services as well as concerts.
Generations of young musicians have benefited from Douglas’s guiding role. He has commissioned and promoted the work of young composers, giving them the benefit of international exposure, with new Australian choral works at the center of every European touring program. He has nurtured and encouraged young conductors, including Graham Cox – Director of Studies, Nüremberg Opera, Tom Healey – Director of Music at St Paul’s Anglican Church Geelong, Gary Ekkel – Director of the Choir of Newman College, Graham Lieschke – Director of the Bach Cantata Series at St John’s Southbank, Rhys Boak – Director of Music at St Michael’s Melbourne, Steven Hodgson – Artistic Director of the Consort of Melbourne and Mitchell Relf – Director of the Melbourne Contemporary Choir Southbank.
Recognized in 1992 with the Medal of the Order of Australia for services to music, Douglas continues an important role with the Australian Chamber Choir. Singers in the early years of their careers are paid to perform, giving them an invaluable apprenticeship in ensemble singing, touring both nationally and internationally and working in ensembles of various sizes.
At home, Douglas’s annual offering of some twenty choral concert programs combines unaccompanied choral music with major works for choir and instruments. He founded and directed the Australian Baroque Ensemble and played a key role in the establishment of the Melbourne Baroque Orchestra for the presentation of historically informed performances. At the forefront of Australia’s early music movement, Douglas has taken concerted music from Monteverdi to Mozart to audiences throughout Victoria, delighting and fascinating them by using historical instruments, providing an insight into the sound world of these composers. In 2020, with the ACC he presents Fauré’s Requiem in an original Chamber instrumentation, with performances in Melbourne, Hamilton, Flinders, Castlemaine, and Macedon.
Douglas is married to Elizabeth Anderson, a harpsichordist and also the Manager of the Australian Chamber Choir. They have a son, Jacob Lawrence, who lives in Basel Switzerland and is studying towards a Masters there while singing with various European ensembles (La Cetra, Huelgas, Vox Luminis, Le Miroir de Musique, Profeti della Quinta). Douglas’ older son, Patrick Lawrence graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a Master of Music in Vocal Accompaniment and combines a career as a pianist and organist with his position as CEO of mental health hub, First Step.
Douglas has this to say about working with the Australian Chamber choir in 2019:
“2019 was for me an intensely satisfying year with the ACC. Tour years always hold a special attraction. The chance to travel with eighteen fantastic singers and a group of thirty like-minded lovers of fine music is a singular privilege. Long time friendships are renewed and fresh exciting places discovered. For many travellers, the concert in St Martin-in-the-Fields would be thought a highlight, if not indeed, the highlight of the Friends time with the choir. However, Hanover, Berlin, Copenhagen and Paris would run a close second. We sang works by well-loved composers such as Bach, Beethoven, Josquin, Debussy, but of special interest to European audiences were new works by Australian composers, Tom Henry and Alan Holley. Finally on the tour – I do love standing ovations!
“The most important aspect of our year is however, how well we sing. I am able to say that, although it may seem unlikely, the performance of this chamber choir edges ever upwards. One of my colleagues said after a recent concert, “Look, I know I always say it but today was the best ACC concert I have heard”. For me, so close to the music and the musicians it is not so easy to judge. There are many high points and nowadays so few disappointments in performance.
“The Carmelite church in Melbourne’s Middle Park, with its high ceiling and cathedral acoustics, remains a favourite place to sing unaccompanied music, together with the beautiful Christ Church St Laurence in Sydney. For bigger works involving orchestra, the beautiful old Scots’ Church in the centre of Melbourne has proven ideal. And for a more intimate experience, a new venture presenting the ACC8 at the historic Mandeville hall Toorak proved extremely popular”.
