When Dash Wilson composes a new piece of music, it’s not just the notes that are important but the story they tell, and his creativity earned him first place this year in the 2025 Illinois Young Composer contest.
His composition “Echo of a Raindrop – From Within the Cave” also received an honorary mention at the Illinois Music Education Association Student Composition Contest in the Senior Instrumental Large Ensemble Category.
“I would say when I was writing it there were two things I had in mind. There was kind of a rainy mountain and an adventurer traveling through the mountain,” the Victor J. Andrew High School junior shared. “So the subtitle of the piece is ‘From Within the Cave.’ The idea is the adventurer stumbles across the cave and then you’re hearing the rainstorm within the cave and it echoes.”
The music for the composition, his ninth, came to Wilson when he found a chord on the piano. “Once I get that idea, I open my voice recorder and capture it as an audio note. I head downstairs and start writing and use that as a reference,” he said, adding that he plays each note of a chord separately so he can remember it.
“Echo” features 16 instruments, with the clave, a wooden percussion instrument often associated with Cuban music, being the most unusual.
“For the most part it’s a pretty standard orchestration. Clave and marimba. This piece feels a little bit Latin to me. It’s one of my favorite styles,” he shared. “It feels kind of jazzy but it’s also orchestra.”
Its jazzy nature is likely due to Wilson’s love of jazz piano and improvisation. He is the pianist for Andrew’s jazz ensemble and a member of its wind symphony and chorale, as well as being an oboist and English horn player with the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra’s Philharmonic Orchestra and its Windy City Quintet Chamber Ensemble.
The talented Orland Park musician has played oboe for about six years but began taking piano lessons when he was just 4 years old, adding jazz lessons about six years ago. He’s not a newcomer to entering this contest. In fact, it’s the third time he’s entered.
“I have never gotten first before, so I didn’t have super high expectations. I was very surprised and excited when I got first place in the contest,” he said.
One of the challenges of writing the piece was keeping it within five minutes, one of the requirements of the CYSO’s nine-month composition seminar, led by Eric Malmquist.
Another is the software he uses, MuseScore, which had glitches in its latest version while he was writing it. “I think four or five times my flute part corrupted and I had to fix it and save copies. It was a bit of a struggle to get crescendos to go in the right spots.”
Wilson isn’t resting on his laurels, however, and already has started working on a new piece to be performed by Andrew’s wind symphony. During a concert sophomore year, he was challenged by band director Mark Iwinski to write a composition senior year.
“It’s a very cool opportunity,” he said. “It’s going to be more exciting. There will be more contrast between the fast and the slow, and it’s going to be longer – about twice as long.”
Wilson’s family couldn’t be happier about his latest awards. “I never fail to be amazed at the music he creates. It’s so rich and complex,” said dad Shane Wilson. “We’re just thrilled that it’s gotten him such recognition.”
His dad, a lifelong music lover, “can’t think of anything cooler than to have music created in your own home. Dash’s music just fills our house, and it’s wonderful to hear all the things he can do,” he said. “Dash starts out with these little musical ideas, and over the course of days and weeks, they just grow into these elaborate compositions. He amazes me every time.”
Michelle Clairmont-Wilson shares that pride and said she was so happy when “Echo” earned an award. “This was his third time I’d placed him in this (contest),” she said. “He got honorary mention two years in a row, basically fourth place, so it was great he got first place.”
She said her son’s compositions have a similarity despite their differences. “I would say a unifying thing I notice is I think all of his pieces have joy and melody. He loves melody. I think a challenge someday might be ‘Please write this atonal ear mangler,’” she joked.
“But I’m always surprised there’s a depth of emotion and some of those pieces have quite a bit of that. It’s surprising for someone of his age to tap into emotion. And some of his pieces, tiny bits of humor come through. Like in ‘Echo’ there’s this moment where there’s a slur on the clarinet that makes me laugh. That is his sense of humor sneaking into this.”
His mom wears many hats while supporting Dash and his music, including helping with his website, dashwilson.com, and guiding his interests.
“I guess we were nontraditional in that we were pretty adamant: Be a creator (of content) not a consumer. We really tried to encourage him to build it, make it, film it, instead of being the person sitting there passively watching it,” she shared. “So I think that was always my role: trying to find interesting opportunities for him and find teachers who were doing the stuff he was interested in.”
Clairmont-Wilson said writing a composition takes a lot more time than people think, averaging about a month for every minute of music her son creates.
“Fifteen seconds of music can take three to four hours to notate in software like MuseScore. Over the course of a month, it would take about 12 to 16 hours to yield a minute of notated music,” she explained. “Because Dash is obviously a student, he can’t devote to this full time. If you could give Dash anything, it would be a sabbatical where he could just devote himself full time to his two passions: coding and writing music.”
After graduating from Andrew, Wilson expects to stay involved with music. “Regardless of what happens, I think I’ll always be doing music,” he shared. “I’m looking at schools that have a strong music program as well as computer sciences.”
He also hopes to continue creating new work. “I enjoy the process of writing and I also enjoy the end result. But moreso, I love to share with others,” Wilson said. “I’ve tried painting and I’ve tried drawing, and it doesn’t come naturally to me like music does. Having a natural way to express my creativity is one of the main reasons I keep writing.”
Melinda Moore is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
