The Winston-Salem Journal has published Composer Dan Locklair’s new CD includes a Requiem that is written for the living as it honors the dead, an interview with Dan about his Requiem CD in their April 10 edition.
Media
Arise in Beauty on new CD
Dan’s Arise in Beauty has been recorded by The Bruton Cappella of Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg, VA as part of their O Sing Unto the Lord A New Song CD for the Raven label. More about the release and to order at https://ravencd.com/merchantmanager/product_info.php?products_id=331 and more about the music here.
Dan on “Magnificat” and “Remembrance”
Dan talks about his choral works Magnificat and Remembrance at https://soundcloud.com/the-classical-station/dan-locklair-discusses-his-compositions-magnificat-remembrance.
Locklair on Convivium Records
Dan’s Requiem, Comfort Ye My People (SATB chorus, a cappella), Calm on the Listening Ear of Night (SATB chorus & organ), The Mystery of God (SATB chorus, a cappella), Arise in Beauty (SATB chorus & organ), Magnificat & Nunc dimittis (Montréal) (SATB chorus, organ) and O Light of Light (SATB chorus, a cappella) will be released very soon on England’s Convivium Records (https://conviviumrecords.co.uk/) with performances by Maestro Rupert Gough, The Choir of Royal Holloway (https://www.chapelchoir.co.uk), organist Martin Baker and the Southern Sinfonia at Christchurch Priory in Dorset U.K.
“The peace may be exchanged” on CD
Dan’s The peace may be exchanged, from his internationally performed Rubrics liturgical suite has been recorded by the late organist Catherine Ennis for England’s Priory label – https://www.prioryrecords.co.uk/Ennis-Orford-Suffolk-Organ. MusicWeb International wrote, “One of the treats on this album is American composers Dan Locklair’s ‘The peace may be exchanged.’ Presented as a ‘aria’ for organ, it features a solo stop supported by strings, creating a numinous and reflective mood. The work has street cred: it was heard at the funeral of President Ronald Reagan and the inauguration of President Barack Obama.” More about the piece.
Dan Locklair on YouTube
See renowned organist Marilyn Keiser’s performances of Dan’s PHOENIX Processional and “…and Call Her Blessed” from his Windows of Comfort (Organbook II) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uISslS3A8O8. They opened her recent The Spirit’s Tether recital at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Indianapolis, IN for the Royal School of Church Music in America.
Hear Dan’s Phoenix Processional for organ in a performance from England’s Hereford Cathedral – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmpTiIq6NvY and read more about it.
See the World Premiere of A Hymn to the Morning, Movement 3 of Dan’s Sing to the World: A Choral Cycle in Five Movements in Celebration of Music, commissioned by Caritas A Cappella Ensemble, 2020 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VODjhKxA03A.
Holy Seasons (Four Tone Poems for Organ) on New Music for a New Organ CD
Dan’s Holy Seasons (Four Tone Poems for Organ), performed by Rebecca Davy, is featured on the Raven release New Music for a New Organ: Dobson Organ, Op. 96. The instrument is located in Bruton Parish Church, Williamsburg, Virginia. More about the new disc.
Read the composer’s notes.
Reynolda Reflections on Three Perspectives CD
Dan’s Reynolda Reflections for flute, cello and piano has been recorded by the Pangaea Chamber Players as part of their new Navona Records CD Three Perspectives – https://www.navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6279/index.html.
Journal of the Association of Anglican Musicians: Organ
From the January 2020 Journal of the Association of Anglican Musicians:
Dan Locklair. Angels: Two Short Tone Poems for Organ (2018, Subito Music Publishing, 91460100), 12 pp., $14.95.
This diptych was premiered this past Summer at the South Jersey AGO Regional Convention by Alan Morrison. The composer explains that although it is unusual to use the term “tone poem,” he chose it “because of the extra-musical stimulus that inspired each piece.” These two short movements contain many elements that make Locklair’s music so recognizable and so loved. Angels of Tranquility features a chromatically descending series of chords that separates strains of a broad lyrical melody on different solo stops. This descending motion symbolizes the “descent of heaven to earth” according to the composer. Details such as pizzicato bass, punctuating notes on the chimes, and the aforementioned broad melody over sustained chords are reminiscent of other well-known Locklair organ works such as Rubrics or Phoenix Processional. There is, however, more of an emphasis on chromatic lines and even some cross-relations in this movement than in some these well-known compositions. Angels of Joy is a driving toccata in mixed meter. A lyrical central section develops the melody heard in the pedals in the outer sections; this melody is in turn rooted in the melodic material of the previous movement, Angels of Tranquility. From a practical point of view, these pieces would be truly useful in that they could serve as a short prelude and postlude set or be used as part of a larger prelude or a recital.
Also from the January 2020 Journal of the Association of Anglican Musicians:
Dan Locklair. Holy Seasons: Four Tone Poems for Organ (2018, Subito Music Publishing, 91460090), 36 pp., $28.95.
Here we find the composer Dan Locklair exploring the idea of the tone poem in a more extended way that seems to fit the genre well. The four movements of Holy Seasons correspond to the most popular seasons of the church year, Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter. A theologically thoughtful and mature approach characterizes these pieces and the composer’s notes explain how theological concepts inform each work. Two of them quote popular hymn tunes but do not use the hymns as the basis for the entire piece (a good thing, in my opinion). These movements take to a new level the subtle use of hymn tunes seen in another composition by Locklair, St. John’s Suite of 2007, especially in the wonderful piece for Palm Sunday, “Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel.” I reviewed this composition in the March, 2014, Journal.
The Call of Advent is surprisingly chromatic overall, in line with Angels of Tranquility, reviewed above. In contrast to this is a spare opening with fanfare motifs on two trumpet stops in dialogue, representing “The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness,” perhaps implying an echo in the wilderness. The use of a quintuple meter hearkens back to another organ work based on the same seasons, Marcel Dupré’s Symphonie Passion, although here the meter yields to the more common quadruple time for much of the piece. Over a chromatic accompaniment emerges a melody that contains seeds of Veni Emmanuel, eventually culminating in a bold statement of that tune in the major mode before melting down to a lovely and serene conclusion featuring the tune in its original form. This movement’s seasonal companion, Christmas Lullaby & Pastorale is in a simple ABA form. A lilting diatonic lullaby is gently enlivened by a thirty-second note figure as well as periodic 5/8 measures punctuating the 6/8 meter, subtly recalling the previous movement. The middle section marked “Playful and piping,” is a dialogue between 4’ flutes on two manuals. When the A section returns there is a fuller registration and a crescendo to the end to suggest “qualities of praise and thanksgiving,” according to the composer. This is unexpected and I wonder if it might be moderated to a gentler registration by the player depending on the circumstances of performance. I understand the reason for it when the work is played as a whole, since a slow movement follows, yet if playing this for a Christmas prelude a less full registration may be effective.
An Aria for Lent, the first of the next pair, also features a hymn tune, although only towards the end following the main portion of the work which uses the form of a passacaglia. The bass line of the passacaglia invokes a centuries-old tradition for the depiction of grief, the chromatic descending tetrachord, used in such works as Dido’s Lament by Purcell and the Crucifixus of Bach’s B minor Mass. Mid-way through the movement, Locklair then expands the bass line to include all twelve chromatic pitches and the level of dissonance increases. After a climax, when the bass line returns to its original form it is played in the left hand while the pedals reveal the Passion Chorale on a 4’ stop. The movement ends gently, as it began, on the celestes. Easter Joy, the final movement is appropriately extroverted and contains a number of hallmarks of Locklair’s organ style: alternation between duple and triple meter, dialogue between manuals, and large climaxes with sustained chords in the manuals, under which the pedals ring out thematic material. About half the length of the other movements, Easter Joy would naturally stand alone as a short postlude. These pieces were commissioned by Bruton Parish in Williamsburg, Virginia to celebrate their 2019 Dobson organ. These works are sincere and eloquent expressions of faith using a mature tonal language and I commend them to you for your consideration.
Excerpts from CD: Symphony No.2 “America”
Symphony No. 2 “America”: I. Independence Day · Slovak National Symphony Orchestra, Kirk Trevor, conductor
Concerto for Organ and Orchestra: I. Entrata – Slovak National Symphony Orchestra, Michael Roháč, conductor, Peter Mikula, organ soloist