Doug Brush Percussion

Biography

Doug is an extraordinarily versatile percussionist. He received training in classical percussion at the American Conservatory of Music and Roosevelt University, graduating with honors.  His teachers included Patsy Dash of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Ed Poremba of the Lyric Opera.  In addition to a formal music education, he has studied with percussion masters in Cuba, Spain, North India, South India, North Africa, and West Africa among other locales. 

 
At the beginning of 2008, Doug spent four months playing gigs and recording sessions, as well as doing television appearances with the top musicians of Accra, Ghana.  While in Ghana he also engineered and  produced a High Life album for AFRIHI, an NGO dedicated to preserving traditional acoustic High Life music.  This time in Africa was immediately followed by a tour of Bali, Australia and New Zealand where he was engaged to provide music for yoga workshops with the internationally known Dave Stringer and Allana Kaivalya.

Highlights of 2009 include concerts in Vienna and Berlin with the University of Chicago based New Budapest Orpheum Society playing Jewish Cabaret music that was censored by the Nazis in the early 1900's and recently rediscovered, a rare performance of Ballet Mechanique by George Antheil at the Harris Theater in Chicago, and an apperance with the Chicago Sinfonietta, performing music that was recorded for permanent installation at the famous Oceanarium exhibit at the Shedd Aquarium.  In March, he presented a lecture with Dr. Cristian Huepe, a physicist, on physics and music as a part of the Chicago Cultural Centers' Ars Scientia program.

Since moving to Christchurch, New Zealand in early 2010, he’s played Brazilian jazz, performed with the Christchurch Symphony, competed with the Invercargill brass band in the national championships (‘outstanding percussion section’ comment), and co-founded and became musical director of Wontanara, a group dedicated to traditional West African drum and dance.  In addition, he has started classes in Arabic, African, Cuban, and Indian percussion and has many private students at the Christchurch Music Centre.   

Doug has always been involved in a diverse range of projects from producing the critically acclaimed jazzy alt-country album Thorny Devil by Kristen Shout and Smoking Kitten, to performing in Chicago’s premier avant-garde chamber music groups, Fulcrum Point and CUBE, as well as playing traditional music from all over the world (Las Guitarras de Espana, Holy Goat Ensemble, Rhythmunity Ensemble, The Occidental Brothers Dance Band International).  He has played for the delegates at the U.N. Headquarters in New York and at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. with The Chicago Classical Oriental Ensemble, an Arab classical orchestra.  Doug also has extensive experience in theater having written music and performed in many of Chicago’s major theaters.   He helped design the instruments for Steppenwolf Theater’s production of ‘A Clockwork Orange’ and designed and built instruments for Red Moon Theater’s ‘DrumTree’, both of which he also performed.  He has played shows for ‘Broadway in Chicago’ including the hit musicals ‘Wicked’ and ‘The Color Purple’.  Doug has also worked extensively in the dance community including work with South Indian dance (Siri Sonty), Irish dance (Trinity Irish Dancers) and Modern dance, including composing and recording the music for two Randy Duncan world premieres performed by members of The Joffrey Ballet and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago.  Culminating a long relationship with the Art Institute of Chicago, in 2006-2007 Doug was an Artist in Residence there.  In addition to participating in special events, he gave monthly lecture-demonstrations in the galleries as part of  their Silk Road exhibit.  In these engagements he spoke about instruments and musical cultures from across Asia. Doug has been internationally published dozens of times in articles he has written for the jazz and blues magazine, Downbeat.

As the Sara Lee Chair of Percussion at the Merit School of Music from 2000 until 2009, Doug was involved in the training of talented teenagers from all over the Chicago area.  Also in Chicago, he taught extensively in inner-city outreach programs for the International Music Foundation and the Ravinia Festival.  In these programs, he performed and lectured to over 100,000 Chicago public school students in the last decade. His teaching experience runs the gamut from professional musicians to toddlers, terminally ill patients and retirees looking for a new hobby, to the homeless and socially troubled youth.