In this Sonatas & Soundscapes interview that aired Thursday, June 4th, host Bradley Fuller speaks with Southeastern Piano Festival Artistic Director Phillip Bush about 2026 festival offerings and his final season in the role.
TRANSCRIPT:
FULLER: Phillip, thanks for being here once again.
BUSH: Happy to be here.
FULLER: The “Festival” in Southeastern Piano Festival really seems to capture something of the multicolor variety—of course, the logo itself is very colorful—but this general variety of offerings involving young musicians, seasoned professionals, educators, and audience members. So, for those who may not be familiar with the SEPF, what kinds of piano offerings will be on tap starting Sunday through next Saturday?
BUSH: Yeah, it's definitely going to be a very festive atmosphere and a real array of different kinds of concerts. Of course, everything is centered around the piano, hence the name. But within that, just the variety of repertoire that is covered, even by the category of what we consider concert piano or classical piano—it's really expanded now so much and performers are doing such interesting things in terms of programming.
And that was my feeling when I looked at the programs that people were submitting. I thought “Wow, these are really, really interesting programs that I would want to go hear,” even if I were not the person organizing the whole thing. We open our Sunday concert on June 7th with the faculty that's teaching at the Piano Festival, which includes a lot of our USC piano faculty, myself included. And then we have guest artists all throughout the week—lots of different kinds of programming in different formats.
For example, at the Tuesday night concert, Pedja Mužijević—a wonderful pianist—is
doing a program that he calls an “Homage to Mixtapes” where, rather than structuring it in the traditional two halves with an intermission, he's doing it in three thirds and vacillating between really old music and much newer music. So he juxtaposes CPE Bach with Morton Feldman, and back to Haydn, and back to Philip Glass—kind of in ways that you don't hear juxtapositions usually in a classical program.
And then we have other performers during the week doing everything from really standard—what we call “standard”—great classical piano works like Schumann Kreisleriana and works by Debussy and so forth. But then also we have Blair McMillan on the Wednesday night, June 10th concert doing some transcriptions of Brad Mehldau—interpretations of Beach Boys and Beatles tunes. So it really just covers the gamut—everything from these kind of time-honored classical masterpieces to more contemporary repertoire towards things that dabble a little bit into the jazz realm and that kind of thing. So those are the guest artists.
We also have 25 young pianists ranging in age from 14 to 18 who will be with us the whole week. Some of them are taking part in the Arthur Fraser Competition on the Friday, but we also have daytime/lunchtime concerts where some of these young pianists will get to play, too, in a very informal setting. So it's just all kinds of different ways of presenting the piano in concert.
FULLER: And it's the second year of the USC Piano Institute?
BUSH: Yes, that's correct. We did a little bit of reorganization of the format starting last year which we've mostly kept this year as well. That’s the learning part—the “piano camp,” if you will—which we call the USC piano Institute. All 25 kids are part of that, and that includes the taking of lessons, and performing in these daytime concerts, and other kinds of educational things that they get to attend: seminars and classes and lectures in improvisation and all kinds of things.
But then a portion of these 25—11 finalists—will be taking part in the Arthur Fraser Competition at the end of the week. It used to be that all the participants in the festival were competitors, but we wanted to open it up more to a wider array of piano students (not just from the area and the region, but nationally as well) who might not necessarily, for example, want to focus on a competitive aspect, but just come for the learning aspect and the camaraderie aspect, too.
So we found that we were able to expand our overall population a little bit that way. Some of the kids are there to do the competition, and then some of the other ones are there to just do the performances and lessons and soak up all the inspiration from the guest artists.
FULLER: I think that was a takeaway from my own time at USC—of course, competitions can be an important part of, you know, a budding virtuoso or virtuosa's career. But the life of musician can and ought to be very well-rounded and involving more than just strictly competing. So it seems like the SEPF is really working to foster that in these youth.
BUSH: That was definitely our goal, and I think we've steered it into that direction. And I think it's going to continue in that way, because it seems to have been very popular and worked in that format.
FULLER: A lecture is also part of your offerings, and Pedja Mužijević, whom you mentioned earlier, will actually be sharing some of his insights?
BUSH: Yes, absolutely. It’s one of the things that he does in many different locales. He's presented this to conservatories and high-level music festivals. He's done this at the Curtis Institute, Juilliard, Colburn School, and so forth—it’s a kind of presentation, and he does it in different formats. Sometimes he does it even as a week-long seminar, but in this case we're doing just as a 90-minute event for the kids.
He calls it the “Concert in 21st Century,” and it really just gets the young pianist thinking about things like programming. For example, I mentioned his innovative program that he's presenting—just ways of putting together a program in ways that are not sort of falling into just the traditional way that classical recitals have been for many, many years, where you have things kind of in chronological order—
FULLER: —start with some Bach—
BUSH: Exactly, and your big virtuoso piece. You know, he's trying to mix it up and find new ways to create programs—to really think creatively. Then also, things like how to engage with your audience. He's specifically having the 11 finalists in our competition do a little homework. When they come to this seminar, they're going to be asked to speak a little bit about a piece that they're performing, as if they were talking to their high school peers who are not necessarily musical or musicians—to try to say something about the piece that's not sort of technical, musicological, or music-historical, but just something that's engaging that could pique the interest and engage their listeners in a way. Just something brief, you know.
And Pedja’s very focused on that kind of thing. So I think it's really important for these young pianists to think about these kind of things as they go forth, because when they leave school, they're going to have to think about how to engage audiences. It's only part of the job to be excellently trained musically. But to find ways get people to come to your concerts, and then to excite them and engage them when they're there, and to get them to want to come back and hear more is also part of the job, too. So I think that's going to be a really exciting event for the young people.
FULLER: It’s certainly a world where we sometimes have to battle for attention spans and “real estate” on the schedule, so to speak.
Well the SEPF is, on the one hand, all about bringing new offerings, new performers and experiences, but also there's a there's a tradition of continuity—piano excellence, celebrating all things piano, really. But there will be a finale aspect to this year's SEPF in that it is your last go as Artistic Director. What signaled to you that it was maybe time to pass the baton?
BUSH: Well, I had always kind of had in mind—and in fact, when I agreed to take on the directorship in discussions with our Dean, Tayloe Harding, after the previous founders of the festival, Marina Lomazov and Joseph Rackers, moved on to teach at the Eastman School of Music—I always kind of had the understanding and expressed the feeling that I viewed myself as a kind of transitional figure. There were certain things that I think we agreed on at the School of Music and the Festival administration—that we wanted to try to adjust in terms of the direction. For example, this idea of the two-tiered thing, of two parts to the Festival (of having competitors and non-competitors), and other aspects of programming.
So I always kind of felt that it would be appropriate to make that transition, and then, when somebody appeared on the scene who was going to be, we feel, around for a long time here in Columbia and fit the bill of being a wonderful musician, and pianist, and teacher, and leader, that would be the time to hand off the reins.
And we have that in my colleague at USC, Nicholas Susi, who's a fabulous pianist, fabulous teacher, and has been helping me as Associate Artistic Director for these last few years, too. And we've consulted on many things about guest artists and that kind of thing, and ideas for the festival. So he's been a part of it already for the last four years.
He will be assuming the role of Artistic Director starting with the 2027 Festival, for which he's already planning and engaging guest artists. And I think it's going to be in great hands, and we hope that Nick is here for many, many years to come and leading the Festival as well as being a core member of our USC piano faculty.
FULLER: Absolutely, and his talents as a performer will also be on full display as part of this year's Festival offerings.
BUSH: Absolutely. As part of that idea—I mean, he's well-known to Columbia audiences already—but to sort of reintroduce him again on the big stage, on the cusp of taking over the directorship—we're presenting Nick Susi in recital on the Monday night, June 8th recital. He'll be the featured artist, and he has a wonderful program planned with lots of interesting repertoire as well. So we’re really looking forward to that. And that'll be kind of his, you know, official debut as artistic-director-in-waiting.
FULLER: Phillip, congratulations to you on your years of leadership—artistic directorship—of the SEPF, and to Nick as well for heading into this role, of course to Caroline Earp, the Executive Director, and all best to these young musicians, to these incredible concert pianists and guest artists coming as well. Sounds like another exciting season of the SEPF in store!
BUSH: I think it's going to be very exciting, and I'm really looking forward to being just a spectator to some of these concerts and also hearing these young people, too, because it's always inspiring to hear their dedication—the fruits of their dedication and hard work. So it's going to be a great week.
FULLER: Absolutely. Thanks so much, Phillip.
BUSH: My pleasure.
