An organ recital by Michael Lodico, Jr., will feature a world premiere performance of the composition "O Festive Day," written by Winston-Salem composer Dan Locklair.

The 6-minute piece was commissioned by Waynesville resident Michael Lodico to commemorate the 60th birthday of his wife, Mary Alice.

The piece will be part of a 2 p.m. concert on July 7 at the First United Methodist Church in Waynesville. The community is invited to attend.

Mary Alice, a French and English teacher, received a Rockefeller Foundation grant to collect traditional children's songs in France. The collection was used in France and the U.S.  and three of her collected songs form the basis of "O Festive Day."

Michael Lodico, Jr., a Waynesville native, was born in 1981 and began studying the piano at the age of 6 and organ at the age of 13.

He received a bachelor of music degree from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he studied the organ with John Weaver and Alan Morrison, harpsichord with Lionel Party, improvisation with Matthew Glandorf, and the piano with Meng Cheih-Liu and Susan Starr.

He studied as a Netherlands-America Foundation/Fulbright Scholar in the Netherlands, obtaining a master’s degree in music, studying the organ under Jacques van Oortmerssen at the Amsterdam Conservatory.

In the summer of 2006, Lodico was appointed director of music of Wye Parish, Maryland, and cirector of choral music at Saint Anselm’s Abbey School in Washington, D.C.

He has participated in festivals and workshops in Canada, England, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the United States, and completed a concert tour playing recitals at English and Scottish Cathedrals, and in Chile and Argentina. Additionally, Lodico is a music critic with the webzine/blog www.ionarts.org, regularly covering the National Symphony and the Baltimore Symphony. He also reviewed opera festivals in Aix-en-Provence, France, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the Bruges Early Music Festival in Belgium.

In May 2008, Lodico was elected to the executive board of the District of Columbia Chapter of the American Guild of Organists and spent a term coordinating the Potomac Organ Institute which offers a year of free lessons for strong pianists.

Also in 2008, Lodico began working in the coordinate music department of the St. Albans and National Cathedral Schools as accompanist and associate chapel organist.  Lodico was founding Music Director of WOW (Wye Operetta Workshop), which features a Gilbert & Sullivan Operetta each summer.  Lodico is now the Associate Organist and Choir Director of St. John's Church, Lafayette Square across from the White House and coordinates the First Wednesdays at St. John's Concert Series, which is about to begin its fourth season.

Dan Locklair (b. 1949), composer, is a native of Charlotte. 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. Presently,  Locklair is composer-in-residence and professor of music at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem.

The music of  Locklair is widely performed throughout the U.S., 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. Dr. 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.

Dan Locklair's music has been premiered and/or performed by such ensembles as the Helsinki Philharmonic (Finland), the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, The Louisville Orchestra, the Kansas City Symphony, the Gregg Smith Singers, the St. Thomas Choir of Men and Boys (New York City), the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, the Elmer Iseler Singers of Toronto, the Chicago Ensemble, the Omaha Symphony, as well as by solo performers Igor Kipnis, Jukka Tiensuu and Marilyn Keiser.

In addition to performances of  Locklair's music in such halls as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall and Washington's Kennedy Center, his music has been programmed on major festivals throughout the world, including the Aspen Music Festival, Spoleto U.S.A., the Chautauqua Festival, Interlochen, the Brevard Music Center (Composer-in-Residence, 1989, 2002 seasons), Southern Cathedrals Festival (England), Warsaw Autumn (Poland), Vendsyssel Festival (Denmark), the Bergen Festival (Norway) and the Internationale Orgelwoche Nürnberg Musica Sacra festival (Germany). 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, With Heart and Voice and American Public Media's Performance Today, St. Paul Sunday and Pipe Dreams.

For more information, call Michael Lodico Sr. at 452-0513

Organ Recital

Toccata..........................................................................................Theodore Dubois (1837-1924)

Dialogue sur les Grands Jeux from Messe pour les Convents ...François Couperin (1668-1733)

Tierce en taille from Livre d'orgue............................................Nicholas DeGrigny (1672-1703)

Prelude and Fugue in E-flat, "St. Anne," BWV 552.............Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Interval

Scherzo..............................................................................................Eugene Gigout (1844-1925)

Berceuse...............................................................................................Louis Vierne (1870-1937)

Wondrous Love, Variations on a Shape-note Hymn........................Samuel Barber (1910-1981)

O Festive Day (World Premiere)..............................................................Dan Locklair (b. 1949)