Philip Rush, D.M., viola and violin
String Department Chair
Teacher Artist Statement
The greatest gifts that I can give to my students are a healthy and facile technique, a critical ear and an open and curious musical mind. Technique at its best allows a student to pursue their own personal goals, whatever they may be, as far as they can.
Teaching Bio
I have been teaching for over twenty years, and my students have run the gamut in age and level, from 5 to 70 years old and from young (or old) beginner to college undergraduate music majors. I have coached chamber music and sectional rehearsals at the secondary and post secondary levels, and have recently become one of the first in the nation to study Mark O’Connor’s new Fiddle Method, based on music of the Americas. While I am firmly grounded in classical technique my experience as a performer makes me at home in many genres, including Jazz, Folk, Rock, including amplified instruments and fiddle styles as well as contemporary music and baroque period instruments.
Performance Bio
While at home in recital, chamber and orchestral music, I have also performed as a member of many Rock, Jazz and Folk ensembles. Most recently I have performed with ensembles including the Rhode Island Philharmonic, the Gardner Chamber Orchestra, the Handel and Haydn Society, the Cantata Singers, the Chamber Orchestra of Boston and Intermezzo Opera Boston. I have also recently collaborated with my wife Michelle, also a violist, in an improvised recording to accompany artist Sheila Gallagher’s Foster Prize nominated installation Unknown Sources at the Institute for Contemporary Art and with members of the Lydian String Quartet and soprano Deborah Van Wrenterghem in a performance of Samuel Barber’s Dover Beach and Arnold Schoenberg’s Second String Quartet at the Class of 1959 Chapel at the Harvard Business School.