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"The work was designed for concert halls," he says, "but it's showing up more and more in religious services. And I'm very democratic about how it is being used."

The work will be featured somewhat in that way in upcoming concerts by the Bach Choir of Pittsburgh. It will be used in concert performances — but both in churches.

"Lux Aeterna," which means "perpetual light," will share the bill with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Mass in C minor, a pairing that is not unusual, Lauridsen says. His work's somewhat religious nature makes it appropriate with the Mass or even with Mozart's Requiem.

"I prefer it with the Mass, though," Lauridsen says. "'Lux Aeterna' is a Requiem in itself."

The five-movement work was written in 1997 during Lauridsen's six years as composer-in-residence with the Los Angeles Master Chorale, led by Paul Salumunovich. Lauridsen, chair of composition at the University of Southern California, says he wrote the piece thinking of that conductor's skills with a large chorus, although it is done sometimes by smaller groups.

The Pittsburgh premiere with the 125-voice Bach Choir is steered in the right direction, he says.

"It is a very contemplative piece," he says, "and one of the things I like the most about it is hearing a large group sing very softly. There is this mass of sound that is put under control — and Paul Salumunovich is great at that."

Besides teaching, Lauridsen has become a leading American composer of vocal music. He has written six vocal cycles, four for choir and two for solo voice, as well as other vocal works and individual songs.

The Bach Choir has performed his "O Magnum Mysterium," and artistic director Brady Allred has used part of the "Lux Aeterna" with his choirs at Duquesne University, Uptown.

"Lux Aeterna" examines the "universality of light" as a symbol for many things, he says, including "beauty, hope and erudition." Lauridsen used pieces of Scripture as ways to express those thoughts and wrote music that sometimes has a renaissance feel in its use of counterpoint.

Lauridsen says the mixed nature of the piece apparently made it somewhat popular. It has been performed "hundreds" of times since it was written and has had 35 performances in the past six months, he says.

"It now shows up on some Easter programs," he adds.

Allred says he built the concerts around the two works because they are during the Christian Holy Week, one on Good Friday.

But it has been used in other ways, too, Lauridsen adds. For instance, a teacher wrote him that she had a class listen to it during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

"It was played as an antidote for all that was happening," he says.

The piece has another nature, too.

Lauridsen wrote it when his mother was ill. She died before getting a chance to hear it.

"So it is a very personal work," he says.

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