[We're excited to present another new contributor to the MMNY blog - meet Joe Phillips]
My name is Joe Phillips and I am a composer. I conduct my ensemble Numinous, a flexible ensemble of up to 25 musicians performing my own compositions (a miscegenation of various stylistic influences I call mixed music). I also head a co
mposer’s federation, Pulse. But reaching the point in my life where I can say I am a composer and feel like it is true, is a journey that happily I’m still on.
It took awhile to accept the moniker, composer, because I’m also a late-bloomer. I’m not a prodigy who started piano at age 3 and began writing music at 5 or 6, nor did I go to classical or jazz concerts from an early age or have music as a constant companion in the home. Like many kids in my neighborhood, I began music studies in 5th grade playing the clarinet, later saxophone and flute. Growing up I did have some music in the household (mostly 60s and 70s black popular music), but it didn’t rate any more personal attention from me than sports and comic books. Frankly, looking back, my music passion was a slow burn kind of thing: it was always there, I just didn’t know it, like love in one of those cheesy romantic-comedies, where the platonic male and female best friends take a good while to realize they are meant for each other.
I played music all through high school but at university I pursued a bio-chemistry major for a couple of years before deciding I wanted a life in music and changed course. Just as in those Rom-Coms a diversion usually delays the two protagonists getting together; mine was teaching. Instead of a diversion, however, teaching turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life, and actually lead me directly to composing and New York.
I was a high school band director and International Baccalaureate teacher in Washington State for a number of years with a successful award-winning program. Initially that didn’t leave much time for composing (or playing) until I joined the Seattle Young Composer’s Collective (now the Degenerate Art Ensemble) where I worked with some of Seattle’s most creative improvisers at the time such as Amy Denio and Jessica Lurie. This involvement sparked my composer’s pilot light, but it was bringing composer Maria Schneider to my high school for a residency and concert (which I previously wrote about at my own blog) that lit it fully and was the direct impetus for me pursuing my dream of a composing life here in New York.
How has it all worked out? Well, despite being in New York for a number of years now, my career in some ways is only just beginning to bloom. Numinous has recorded two CDs, the latest, Vipassana (innova), was released in 2009, and we will record again in 2012. There are a number of exciting upcoming projects, performances and commissions for Numinous include a dance work based on the writings of Thomas Paine and an electric violin piece for Ana Milosavljevic. I also still teach, although believe it or not, now I’m educating 5- and 6-year old kindergarteners in music and math at PS 321 in Park Slope.
I want to thank George and Make Music New York for inviting me to contribute to the blog and I look forward to sharing some of my adventures and thoughts on making music in New York. 
