Passion and possibility<\/strong><\/p>\nFranklin first came to Furman in high school as a member of South Carolina\u2019s All-State Band.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just felt like it was Hogwarts,\u201d he said, \u201cthis cool, magic place.\u201d Deciding to come back for college was a \u201cslam dunk.\u201d<\/p>\n
He started as a music education major but switched to performance.<\/p>\n
Hicken, who retired in 2019 as professor of music education and director of bands, remembers Franklin as one of the best clarinet students he\u2019s had, an avid musician who was involved in all the key musical groups on campus.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a major contributor while he was here,\u201d Hicken said. \u201cAnd his passion about making music was there right from the top.\u201d<\/p>\n
Besides class work, Franklin credits four years of ensembles under Hicken and others with helping develop both his ear and his musicianship \u2013 laying the foundation for his work as a composer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey taught us so much about how to make music,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Franklin went from Furman to Indiana University, where he earned both master\u2019s and doctoral degrees in clarinet. His academic work was interrupted by four years in the U.S. Army Field Band, an elite group based in Washington, D.C. The band toured about 100 days a year, playing everywhere from schools to arenas.<\/p>\n
Franklin auditioned with pieces by Mozart, Stravinsky and Shoshtakovich. At his first concert, the top piece of music on his stand was a Muppets medley.<\/p>\n
It was lesson No. 1 on playing music that people love to hear. And it became the seed of his belief that there\u2019s space for works that are both musically rigorous and broadly engaging.<\/p>\n
His earliest compositions began on the bus between Field Band gigs. Franklin hadn\u2019t taken composition classes, but he had the deep theory and experiences of a performer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith not a lot of knowledge, you can make some cool stuff,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Headphones in place, he tapped out his first minuets on an iPad.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to become a composer and save music from the academics,\u201d he decided.<\/p>\n
Since then, his acclaimed compositions for voice have won numerous awards and his instrumental work has been commissioned by groups such as the Interlochen Arts Academy Band and the U.S. Air Force Academy Band.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Audience in mind<\/strong><\/p>\nFranklin\u2019s composing process is more like weaving than linear development. Most pieces begin with a main melody, an \u201cevocative melodic fragment,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I have that, I can spin that into a piece.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the GSO asked Hicken to put together a program for its chamber series, he wanted to connect the concert to his own career as a clarinetist. He invited Franklin to join as soloist, thinking they\u2019d work together to find the right piece.<\/p>\n
Instead, Franklin offered to write one.<\/p>\n
Roughly a year later, both men are looking forward to the final stretch next week, the rehearsals and the concerts, the first time they will hear \u201cThe Old Road\u201d as a non-digital whole.<\/p>\n
Hicken has the score but he hasn\u2019t picked up his own clarinet to try out the solo part.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pretty difficult,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m letting Erik handle that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Franklin is anticipating the first rehearsal. If it\u2019s fun for the musicians to play, \u201cthat\u2019s when I know I did a good job.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then Sunday, he\u2019ll take his first group of listeners on \u201cThe Old Road\u201d with him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the audience is going to like it, because I wrote it with them in mind,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Composer and musician Erik Franklin ’11 will play an original piece for the clarinet while Les Hicken, former director of bands at Furman, will wave the baton in the Peace Center’s Gunter Theater. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":272,"featured_media":31582,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,39],"tags":[913,179,2746],"class_list":["post-31542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-music","tag-alumni-news","tag-music","tag-peace-center"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/272"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}