Dan Locklair
Requiem

Dan Locklair, composer-in-residence at Wake Forest University, was born on August 7, 1949 in Charlotte, NC. 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. Locklair is Composer-in-Residence and Professor of Music at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Locklair composes music in a wide variety of genres and his works are widely performed throughout the world. Much of his music has also been recorded on numerous labels. His primary publishers are Ricordi [Boosey & Hawkes and Hal Leonard, U.S. agents] and Subito Music Publishing. Locklair’s 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 its Centennial Year, he 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 Requiem was composed in two stages, the first being between 2012-14 and the second between December 2014 and April 2015. It received its World Premiere on November 1, 2015 by The Choir of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church (Dr. John Cummins, Organist/Choirmaster) and members of the Winston-Salem Symphony Orchestra. It has since been recorded on the Convivium Records label. Requiem is dedicated to the memory of Locklair’s parents, Archie Greer Locklair (1916-1986) and Hester Helms Locklair (1918-2005).

Dan Locklair’ Requiem is a piece of music that speaks, as Beethoven wrote of his Missa solemnis, from the heart to the heart. Originally conceived for chorus, SATB vocal soloists and organ, the composer revised the work to add string instruments to its sound world, although it can be, and has been, performed just with organ and voices. As is the case with many of Locklair’s choral works, it owes much to the model of the 19th and 20th-centuries English choral tradition, although his own compositional style and voice comes through clearly for those audiences familiar with his music. Composed in memory of his parents, Locklair writes that he “will ever be grateful to each of them for their deep, unselfish love and ongoing influence on my life. May they rest in peace and may this Requiem be a small, yet fitting, memorial to their rich lives.”

Locklair also explains the structure of Requiem in his own program notes:

Program Notes by David B. Levy/Dan Locklair, © 2022/2015