All the right strings

Thailand was once again in the American news recently and this time for all the right reasons, as classical guitarist Ekachai “Bird” Jearakul became the first Thai – indeed the first Asian – to win the top prize in the Guitar Foundation of America International Concert Artist Competition.

It’s every classical guitarist’s dream to win this most prestigious of guitar competitions and Ekachai is justifiably proud of his achievement.

“Winning first prize can change a competitor’s life,” says Ekachai, who will record an album with Naxos and GHA Records this year and begin his 50-city North America concert tour and once-in-his-life concert at Carnegie Hall in 2015.  

“The 50 concerts will introduce me to the world,” says the 27-year-old Ubon Ratchathani native, who also came home with more than US$10,000 (Bt320,000) in prize money, a Karura guitar case and a three-year supply of D’Addario strings.

 “And I’ve just paid for my favourite Rolex Submariner watch worth over US$8,000 [over Bt250,000] in America to be inscribed with “The First Prize of Guitar Competition 2014”. 

“I plan to keep my memories of the GFA alive by collecting everything about this competition including all my photos and guitar strings.”

Praise and congratulations have come flooding in for the first Asian winner. “A Chinese classical guitar master in Shanghai with whom I studied posted a message on his Facebook page saying how proud he was. And it was particularly gratifying to receive praise from the judges of the competition about my interpretation and programme,” he says.

“The judges told me to enjoy the tour and I will. It will be a marvellous experience and because it will give me an opportunity to meet people in the classical world, I’ll be able to build up a network of contacts too.”

Ekachai was up against two French guitarists in the final round, but pipped them to the post. Thomas Csaba and Jeremy Peret picked up second and third respectively with Turkey’s Celil Refik Kaya coming in fourth. All were required to interpret a programme of mandatory pieces including the newly composed “Gold Are My Flowers” by American pianist Curtis Curtis-Smith.

“I performed it with a quick tempo as I felt a slow tempo would make it boring. I thought my interpretation was more outstanding than those of the other finalists, who opted for a slower pace,” Ekachai says.

“I’ve always worked hard for every competition but practised more than ever before for the GFA because I wanted to be perfect in the new piece we as finalists were given just two months before the competition. It was a contemporary composition, which made it hard to understand and we had no chance to communicate directly with the composer.”

Ekachai registered his participation in the GFA in 2013 but a tight show schedule prevented him for participating.

He’s off soon to Canada to record his CD, which should be in shops before the end of the year. “It will take a similar form to my recital programmes,” he says. “I’ll include some of the songs from the competition and three compositions by His Majesty the King –  ‘Oh I Say’, ‘Saeng Duean’ [Magic Beams] and ‘Lom Nao’ [Love in Spring] – which I recorded as part of my tribute-to-the king album two years ago produced by Thai Beverage Marketing”.

“I had already enrolled in a doctoral programme in Sydney, Australia, but have put it on hold after winning the GFA. I’ll take it up again in two years.”

When he’s not playing guitar Ekachai likes to cook. “I watched the method for cooking Peking Duck on YouTube time and time again but I’ve never been able to reproduce the dish. I’m much better at steak,” he laughs.

Fans of Ekachai will be able to catch him live on stage later in the year in a concert that’s being planned by his sponsors, Thai Beverage Marketing.