Christopher Morley speaks to child prodigy Philip Fisher about how moving to the US has shaped his music.
The last time I interviewed Philip Fisher was in the early 1990s. He was 12 years old, and a wunderkind, about to play the Shostakovich Second Piano Concerto (composed for another wunderkind, the composer’s son Maxim in Symphony Hall).
As I walked through the front door of his Edgbaston family home he was playing the awesome Third Piano Concerto of Prokofiev, as you do.
What was it like being a child prodigy, I asked him recently when we caught up again.
“It’s almost distant memories, in a way. Everything happened so quickly. I didn’t start playing until I was eight-and-a-half or nine, but it always seemed very natural to be on the stage and so on.
“I think there’s always a transitional period where you switch from the prodigy syndrome, trying to make the step into being an artist and a fully-fledged professional, and it always comes at a different time for everybody.”
So when did it come for Philip?
“I would say, somewhere in my early20s, I think, towards the end of doing my Bachelor’s at the Royal Academy, and moving to New York to the Juilliard School.
“Then, when you’re branching out and trying to get a kind of professional footing, you start to question exactly what you’re about as an artist, what makes you an individual, are these going to be important questions...
“So I think it really took place around then, along with that move to New York, when you find new pastures and new people, and you’re constantly having to define yourself – it makes you ask questions.”
Philip explains how he came to go to New York in the first place.
“I’d always wanted to do an exchange, and I wanted to go somewhere abroad. And the Academy had an exchange programme, so I planned to do the exchange during the first year of my postgraduate studies. Then just before I left I won the Juilliard Scholarship, which was wonderful chance timing. But the rule was, you had to do two consecutive years with the scholarship, so I spent a year as exchange and then I studied privately in New York with Joseph Kalichstein, my teacher there.
“Then I thought I’d stay on for the Master’s Programme at Juilliard, then one thing led to another. I made it my home – it really was my permanent home for a long time; I’m really only just straddling the Atlantic to spend 50 per cent of my time in New York, and the rest here in Birmingham with my family.
“And it’s nice to return. I’ve had support from Birmingham City Council for my first disc with Naxos, which was Handel keyboard suites.
‘‘They were very generous in supporting the disc financially, and Symphony Hall were very generous in letting me use the venue for recording, so I’ve really been welcomed back into the city with open arms, which is very gratifying, and I think it’s almost coming full circle.”
