Rubric

The Newsletter of Composer Dan Locklair

Summer 2006Special Edition

The Board of Directors of the Virginia Chorale has commissioned composer Dan Locklair to compose a choral work in honor of Music Director Robert Shoup's 10th Anniversary Season as part of the Virginia Festival of American Voices, where Mr. Locklair has also been named Festival Resident Composer. Other of his compositions will be prominently featured in festival concerts and he will also participate in panel discussions and workshops.

The March 23, 2007 premiere performance will be conducted by Mr. Shoup as part of the festival that will feature two-time Grammy award winning conductor and lifelong advocate of American music and prolific arranger of American song Robert Page, the Virginia Symphony, JoAnn Falletta Music Director, the Virginia Symphony Chorus and multiple choirs including the Virginia Chorale, the Virginia Children's Chorus, the Young Singers Project and the Norfolk State University Choir. The concert, featuring the Premiere performance of the Virginia Chorale's commission, is being produced by the orchestra and will be telecast live in Virginia. Funding is provided, in part by the National Endowment for the Arts as part of their American Masterpieces: Choral Music Initiative.

Among the multiple components of the Virginia Festival of American Voices will be the March 17, 2007 American Legacies concert, produced by the Virginia Chorale at the Norfolk Academy in Norfolk, Virginia. In addition to works by Mr. Locklair, the concert will also feature music by composers and arrangers such as Alice Parker, William Dawson, Charles Ives and Adolphus Hailstork. The Virginia Chorale will be joined by the Bel Canto Company of Greensboro, North Carolina and the James River Singers of Richmond, Virginia for this performance.

Other festival concerts will feature the Virginia Symphony Orchestra along with guitarist Christopher Parkening and singer Jubilant Sykes.

One of only seven such festivals in the United States in 2006-2007, the Festival explores the breadth of beauty, drama, and virtuosity of American choral music. The Festival will include many of the Symphony's series events as well as the March 17 performance hosted by the Virginia Chorale. A variety of related events will feature recognized figures in the American choral landscape. More about the Virginia Festival of American Voices online at http://www.virginiasymphony.org/explore/2007%20pages/amvoices.html.

The text to be set for this commission (being composed for chorus and strings), is entitled The Attending and was written by Fred Chappell, former Poet Laureate of the state of North Carolina. The poem can be read at http://www.ncarts.org/chappell/attending.cfm.

Fred Chappell has written 14 books of verse, two volumes of stories, one of criticism and eight novels. Among the awards and honors Mr. Chappell has received over his long career are the Sir Walter Raleigh Prize (1973), the North Carolina Award for Literature (1980), Yale University Library's Bollingen Prize in poetry (1985), a literature award from the National Academy of Arts and Letters (1968), the best foreign book prize from the Academie Française (1972), and the Aiken Taylor Award in poetry (1996).

Internationally recognized American composer Dan Locklair, a native of Charlotte, NC, is Composer-in-Residence and Professor of Music at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC. His compositional output, influenced by a wide variety of traditions, ranging from Medieval to modern music, includes symphonic works, a ballet, an opera, and numerous solo, chamber, vocal, organ and choral compositions. His music has been performed throughout Europe and North America by many major orchestras, choral groups, chamber ensembles and soloists. Several of these works have received major awards, including the top award in the 1989 Barlow International Competition for "changing perceptions & Epitaph" and the 1996 American Guild of Organists Composer of the Year Award. Among his other honors are consecutive ASCAP Awards since 1981 and a Kennedy Center Friedheim Award.

For more information about composer Dan Locklair, including a bio, list of works, discography and much more, please visit the newly redesigned http://www.locklair.com. You can also contact Jeffrey James Arts Consulting at 516-586-3433 or jamesarts@worldnet.att.net.