Jocelyn Morlock

Jocelyn Morlock  (14 December 1969 – 27 March 2023) was a composer who lived in Vancouver, Canada, the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil Waututh First Nations. Her music is inspired by birds, insomnia, nature, fear, other people’s music and art, nocturnal wandering thoughts, lucid dreaming, death, and the liminal times and experiences before and after death.

The JUNO® Award-winning composer worked with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra as their first female Composer-in-Residence (2014-2019), after completing her term (2012-2014) as inaugural Composer-in-Residence for Vancouver’s Music on Main, co-host of ISCM World New Music Days 2017.

In 2018 Morlock won a JUNO® for Classical Composition of the Year (for My Name is Amanda Todd – part of the National Arts Centre Orchestra’s multi-media work, Life Reflected); the Western Canadian Music Award for Classical Composer of the Year; the Jan V. Matejcek New Classical Music Award (SOCAN); and the Barbara Pentland Award for Outstanding Contributions to Canadian Music (Canadian Music Centre). Other accolades include the Mayor’s Arts Award for Music in Vancouver (2016), a 2011 JUNO® nomination for Classical Composition of the Year, Top 10 at the 2002 International Rostrum of Composers (Lacrimosa), six nominations and two wins at the Western Canadian Music Awards, and winner of the 2003 CMC Prairie Region Emerging Composers competition.

Morlock’s international career was launched at the 1999 International Society for Contemporary Music’s World Music Days with Romanian performances of her quartet Bird in the Tangled Sky. Since then, she has been the composer of record for several significant music competitions, including the 2008 Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition and the 2005 Montreal International Music Competition, for which she wrote Amore, a tour de force vocal work that has gone on to receive more than 70 performances and numerous radio broadcasts.

Recent premieres include Serpentine Paths written for cellist Rachel Mercer and violinist Akemi Mercer-Niewohner for their new album Our Strength, Our Song, which celebrates sisterhood and music by Canadian women; Stone’s Throw for Vancouver-based, internationally renowned new music sextet Standing Wave, the Resident Ensemble at Gaudeamus 2020; Strange Loop, written for Otto Tausk and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra for their 100th anniversary; Io, Io! written in celebration of the Vancouver Cantata Singers’ 60th anniversary, Lucid Dreams, a cello concerto written for Ariel Barnes’ final appearance as principal cellist of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra before leaving to join the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra, and O Rose, written for Bramwell Tovey’s final concert as Vancouver Symphony Orchestra Music Director after 18 years of service.

Jocelyn Morlock completed a Bachelor of Music in piano performance at Brandon University, studying with pianist Robert Richardson. She received both a Master’s degree and a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of British Columbia.

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