Composer Phil Barish
Whether writing music for its own sake or to collaborate on social sentiments, Phil Barish is a composer from Chicago who writes music with momentum regardless of speed.
Phil's music is influenced by a variety of genres from 20th Century Orchestral and Chamber Music to Contemporary Classical, Jazz and Rock. Phil studied composition at the University of Illinois with Thomas Fredrickson, David Liptak, Salvatore Martirano, John Melby, Sever Tipei and Scott Wyatt.
This new website under construction starts with Phil’s latest work:
World Winds (2025)- a modern chamber composition reflecting an impression of the decades leading up to our current social condition.
World Winds
This music reflects on periods of mixed American expression within the context of the greater world. For the last half of the country's age, certain stretches of history can subjectively be summarized in sound. This music is influenced by and structured according to those stretches of history in a proportional nanosecond of 7 minutes. While this is a tightening of the overall timeline, the music is structured across 6 time periods (plus the current one) that delineate the start of certain presidential terms or groups of terms and their sociopolitical conditions that ensued. These periods could be interpreted in light of a graduated race to somewhere over 60 years, then 32 years, then 8 years+8 years+8 years+8 years+Now.
The periods (and the sections of this music) ebb and flow between AND within themselves as impressions of mixed American expression: Sometimes progressing, sometimes regressing, but consistently conflicted and in reaction to the previous periods (accumulated) mixed American Expression.
The score preface outlines the periods as follows:
1901 - 1961: Rehearsal 1-43
Theodore Roosevelt - Dwight D. Eisenhower
1961 - 1993: Rehearsal 43-86
John F. Kennedy - George H. W. Bush
1993 - 2001: Rehearsal 86-116
William J. Clinton
2001 - 2009: Rehearsal 116-140
George W. Bush
2009 - 2017: Rehearsal 140-162
Barack Obama
2017 - 2025: Rehearsal 162-217
Donald Trump - Joseph R. Biden Jr.
2025 - A message of hope... with a warning: Rehearsal 217 - 225
Full Score & Parts
Click to open or download here