Chattanooga composer Charles Edholm won second prize in the Emerging Composers Competition, commissioned by the acclaimed clarinet and guitar duo Jâca and sponsored by Vandoren and Potenza Music.
The competition aims to create new, original works for clarinet and guitar, and featured over 20 submissions from promising young composers from seven countries on three different continents. Edholm’s winning submission, titled Echo Dance, won him a guaranteed recording and premiere of the work from Jâca and a potential publishing deal with Potenza Music.
Edholm is a guitarist, teacher, and composer who holds a Master of Music in classical guitar performance from Lee University where he studied with K. Alan Shikoh and previously studied composition with John Wykoff. He was a semi-finalist in the 2019 Leo Brouwer International Composition Competition for Solo Guitar. He currently serves on the adjunct faculties of Lee University and Southern Adventist University, and contributes weekly to the liturgy at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Cleveland, TN. (For more information, visit www.charlie-edholm.com.)
The 2021 competition theme was to write a work relating to the topic of “culture.” Edholm set out to write a piece inspired by his personal journey with guitar. His piece Echo Dance is exactly that: an interplay between themes echoing the musical influences in his own guitar playing, including important guitar figures and music from guitarists like Pat Metheny and composers like Isaac Albeniz.
Edholm said this about his piece: “One of the guitar's strengths is its presence in so many cultures across the world; in this way, Echo Dance represents the tugging influences that drew and sustained my musical journey with the instrument as it opened me to new musical cultures. On a more personal note, as a child I learned to play music on the clarinet, and so writing the piece for clarinet and guitar felt to me on another level to evoke the playfulness of childhood in conversation with the further developed sensitivities adulthood brings. Sonata form captures the drama of conflict in theme, key, and structure; ‘conflict’ in this sense not inherently negative, rather representing a synthesis of disparate parts into the whole human being.”
Jâca loved his piece, stating: “Echo Dance is a delightful composition with clever thematic development and some really beautiful sections that really tie the clarinet and guitar together in a unique way. We are thrilled to be performing and recording the work!”