Dan Locklair BiographyThe composer Dan Locklair is a native of Charlotte, North Carolina (USA). He 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. He is presently Composer-in-Residence and Professor of Music at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
The music of Dan Locklair is widely performed throughout the United States., Canada and abroad, including performances in England, Germany, France, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Sweden, Korea, Japan, Finland and Russia. His prolific output includes symphonic works, a ballet, an opera and numerous solo, chamber, vocal and choral compositions.
His many awards have included consecutive ASCAP Awards since 1981, a Kennedy Center Friedheim Award, an Aliénor Award, the New Music Award from the Omaha Symphony Society, two North Carolina Composer Fellowship Awards and the top Barlow International Competition Award for 1989. In 1992 he became the first American composer ever to be invited to and have music performed at the 35-year-old Czech Festival of Choral Arts in Jihlava, Czech Republic and, again at the invitation of the Czech government, was invited to return to be a part of this Festival during 1997. In its Centennial Year, Dan Locklair was named 1996 AGO Composer of the Year by the American Guild of Organists, a distinguished honor awarded yearly to an American composer who has not only enriched the organ repertoire, but who has also made significant contributions to symphonic and concert music. His 1995 composition, Since Dawn (A Tone Poem for Narrator, Chorus and Orchestra based on Maya Angelou's On the Pulse of Morning), is the first musical setting of Maya Angelou's well-known and important poem commissioned for the 1993 Inauguration of President Bill Clinton. Dan Locklair's music has been premiered and/or performed by distinguished ensembles and soloists. He has received many important commissions and his music has been presented at major festivals throughout the world. Broadcasts of his music have been heard world-wide over Voice of America, Vatican Radio, Finnish Radio, the BBC, Czech Radio, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, National Public Radio's “Performance Today” and the Public Radio International programs St. Paul Sunday, Pipe Dreams and With Heart and Voice, and his compositions have been widely recorded.
A professional organist at the age of fourteen, Dan Locklair's past organ recitals have included New York City performances at the Cathedral of St John the Divine, St Thomas Church and St Patrick's Cathedral. Prior to moving to Winston-Salem, from 1973 to 1982 he was Church Musician of First Presbyterian Church in Binghamton, New York, and an Instructor of Music at Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York. His former teachers have included Joseph Goodman, Ezra Laderman, Samuel Adler and Joseph Schwantner (composition), as well as Donna Robertson, Robert Baker and David Craighead (organ).
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