Phillip Bush, who will perform with
the USC Symphony Orchestra Oct. 18, is considered a musician’s musician.
"He's
such a monster player, but wears it so lightly," said Ken May, a musician
and director of the S.C. Arts Commission. "He just comes across as a real
normal guy, but with amazing chops and an amazing resume."
Bush and his
wife Lynn Kompass, an associate professor at the USC School of Music, and their
son Spencer live in the Old Shandon neighborhood of Columbia. He will perform
Beethoven’s Concerto No. 4 at the Oct. 18 USC Symphony concert.
The pianist spent
his early years in New Jersey where his father worked for a book publisher and
played jazz and his mother, a native of Germany, usually had Mozart and
Schumann on the record player. Young Phillip listened and memorized and started
music classes at 5. In 1967, the family moved to Charlotte.
When he was
10, Bush heard a concert that would lead to his love of 20th century
music. The New York Philharmonic came to town and played Bela Bartok's 1936
"Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste." That sent him scurrying
for more music by Bartok and other early 20th-century composers.
After high
school he headed to the Peabody Institute Conservatory where he studied with
Leon Fleisher, an acclaimed pianist. He didn't consider himself a standout
student and was reluctant to take on and fully appreciate the older music. Warming
up to the older composers took time. Bach and Beethoven, especially the dark
edginess of the latter, weren't too difficult. Early classical composers --
Mozart and Haydn -- were another matter.
"It took
me a while to see the sense of invention in the works, and now they're some of
my favorites," he said.
Upon
graduating Peabody, Bush headed to the Banff Centre in Canada for post-graduate
studies. In the nonstructured environment, Bush developed his discipline.
That's also where he met composer Steve Reich, who was a visiting artist.
"I
cajoled the school into letting me set up a performance of Reich's 'Six Pianos'
since we had plenty of pianos there," Bush said. Reich came and heard it,
and Bush followed him around all week "like a groupie." After Banff,
he moved to New York, where Reich hired him as a rehearsal player. A few years
later, he was part of the group. He also worked with
dancer/choreographer/composer Laura Dean and through her met other new music
composers and performers, including Philip Glass. He performed with both the
Reich and Glass ensembles for most of the next 20 years.
During his
years in New York, Bush frequently performed with the Chamber Music Society of
Lincoln Center and Bargemusic. He has played at festivals from Cape Cod to
Scotland and for eight years was in the piano group Typhoon, which topped the
classical music charts in Japan for several years. During the mid-1990s, he
started performing with Present Music, based in Milwaukee, and in 2000 began
teaching at the University of Michigan School of Music. At Michigan, he met Kompass,
who was finishing her doctorate. She got a job at the USC School of Music and
Bush settled here shortly after the two married about four years ago.
"This is
a pleasant city to live in, and I've gotten to know a lot of people in the
creative community," he said.
He’s been
very active in Columbia playing music from many eras in a wide range of
settings: Bach and Beethoven at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, Charles Ives,
Philip Glass, Olivier Messiaen and John Zorn at the USC Southern Exposure
series, and Glass and Bach at The White Mule nightclub. Each summer he goes to
Vermont where he is music director of The Chamber Music Conference and
Composers' Forum of the East. His most recent recording “The Complete Sonatas
for Violin and Piano” by Beethoven was released earlier this year.
California
violist Helen Callus has performed with Bush several times including for the
NPR program “St. Paul Sunday.”
"He
loves what he does, and he also has that balance of being a nice person and
sensitive," said "His range is limitless. I know from playing with
him that he can play anything beautifully."
