Composer Bio
North Carolina-native Dan Locklair is a composer, performer, conductor, educator, and lecturer with a vast and internationally performed catalog of works. His music include pieces for orchestra, ensemble, ballet, opera, as well as numerous solo, chamber, vocal, organ and choral compositions. A trained, professional organist, Locklair’s composition teachers include Joseph Goodman, Ezra Laderman, Samuel Adler, and Joseph Schwantner; and he studied organ with include Donna Robertson, Robert Baker, and David Craighead.
Locklair’s music has been presented by many commissioners and performers. Among the numerous ensembles are: the Buffalo Philharmonic; Saint Louis Symphony; Louisville Orchestra; North Carolina Symphony, Omaha Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, Winston-Salem Symphony, North Carolina Dance Theatre; Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble; Helsinki Philharmonic BBC Singers; Gregg Smith Singers; Cathedral Choral Society (Washington, DC); and harpsichordists Igor Kipnis and Jukka Tiensuu, organists Marilyn Keiser, Thomas Murray, John Scott, and Thomas Trotter.
The composer’s works have been heard at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Disney Concert Hall, the Aspen Music Festival, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, the Spoleto Festival USA, and at the Kennedy Center and National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Internationally, his music has been programmed at festivals such as: Southern Cathedrals Festival (England); Warsaw Autumn (Poland), Vendsyssel Festival (Denmark); Bergen Festival (Norway) and at the Internationale Orgelwoche Nürnberg Musica Sacra festival (Germany). Broadcasts and streams of his music have been heard world-wide over Voice of America, Vatican Radio, Finnish Radio, the BBC, Czech Radio, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, With Heart and Voice, and American Public Media’s Performance Today, St. Paul Sunday and Pipedreams.
His 1995 composition, Since Dawn (A Tone Poem for Narrator, Chorus and Orchestra)is the first musical setting of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Maya Angelou’s well-known poem On the Pulse of Morning, which was commissioned for the 1993 inauguration of US President Bill Clinton. During the state funeral of President Ronald Reagan, an excerpt from the composer’s Rubrics was performed. Rubrics is one of the most frequently programmed organ pieces of late 20th-century American organ music.
Locklair’s music is commercially available on Koch, Naxos, Ondine, Albany, Gasparo, Capstone, Navona, Acis, Priory, Regent, Arsis, Titanic, Raven, Pro Organo, Gothic, Loft, ACA Digital, Pro Arte Fanfare, Orion and Opus One labels. His most recent recordings were well-received by critics and audiences alike: Symphony No. 2, “America,” on Naxos (8.559860) and the Convivium Records (CR078) release of the composer’s Requiem.
Locklair holds a Master of Sacred Music degree from the School of Sacred Music of Union Theological Seminary in New York City and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Presently, he serves as Composer-in-Residence and Professor of Music at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC. Subito Music Corporation is the principal publisher of Locklair’s music.
For more information, visit Dan Locklair’s website here.
