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Phillip Golub ’16 is a composer and recent nominee of the Newcomer of the Year — International category of the 2025 German Jazz Prize. Having released a slew of recordings over the last year, Golub has recently been garnering attention for the distinct musicality of his work. Focused on improv, he combines experimental techniques with a foundation in classical jazz music.
Golub currently lives in Brooklyn, New York and is a musician-in-residence at Dumbarton Oaks, a Harvard-owned research institution in Washington D.C. He is also the co-founder and pianist of an improv-composer group called Tropos, which released its album “Switches” in June. Throughout his work, Golub embraces composing with “audacity,” experimenting with different methods and going beyond the limitations of pre-existing structures in the music world.
Growing up in a musical family, Golub was introduced to the world of composition and jazz early on. His father was a composer who was trained in contemporary classical music and regularly listened to jazz pianists throughout Golub’s childhood. Golub also grew up playing classical piano. This early immersion in the music landscape led him to begin composing and playing jazz as early as middle school.
“I just found it really exciting to figure out what people were doing, when they were improvising, and to take part in that,” Golub said in an interview with The Crimson.
Originally from Los Angeles, Golub came to Boston for his education as a part of a joint program between Harvard and the New England Conservatory. At Harvard, he became involved with various musicians and professors, including Professor Vijay Iyer and Senior Lecturer Yosvany Terry, who advised him throughout his early composing career. He would continue to work with Iyer, who wrote the liner notes for his record last year.
An important aspect of Golub’s artistry is that as a composer, an improviser, and a pianist, his music often combines these different facets of his approach to creating art — all of which are integral to his creative identity.
“I couldn’t just call myself a composer, or just call myself an improviser, or just call myself a pianist. Those three things are like almost three pillars, if you will, of what I do,” he said.
When initially composing, Golub considers the reaction of the listener and the emotional response he gets from his music.
“I’m looking for something meaningful — a reaction in the music that I’m hearing, that I’m perceiving — with the intention of passing that on to another listener down the line,” he said.
He accomplishes this by embracing new technologies and tuning systems to go beyond the predetermined bounds of music. This is best exemplified through his February release, titled “Loop 7,” which demonstrates the power of defying expectations.
In the piece, he uses a system that has 22 notes per octave (a regular piano has just 12 notes per octave). This technique can best be described as microtonal, meaning that the intervals used are smaller than a semitone, or the smallest interval playable on a piano. Testing the limits of music, Golub purposefully keeps his mind open to experimentation and encourages listeners to the same.
“If you only are going to be open to music that fits into categories and boxes that you already know and has qualities that you already know, my music's not going to speak to you,” he said.
Inspired by the philosophy of his late mentor, jazz legend Wayne Shorter, Golub is intent on bringing an authenticity to his work that is focused on not caving to the pressure around you. The pair originally worked together on Shorter’s jazz opera “Iphigenia.” Golub went on to work on Shorter’s manuscripts — something he has continued even after Shorter died in 2023.
“It’s just that drive to look to just do what you want to do, and almost not listen to the other pressures around you, the other voices around you telling you what something should be, how something should be, how things normally go,” he said.
Based on this philosophy, Golub often pursues projects that are difficult or technically “impossible,” as seen with the 22-note octave in “Loop 7.”
“I suppose you could say there’s a certain audacity in that practice,” he said.
Some of his upcoming works include new loops similar to that of “Loop 7,” which incorporate retuned pianos as the original did. Furthermore, Golub is planning to release a new album that is microtonal and follows similar experimental techniques to “Loop 7.” He is also currently working on a solo piano project.
Through microtonal pieces and music that exemplifies the power of authenticity, Golub is an example of a new wave of jazz composers who seek innovation. The audacity of experimentation and defiance of preconceived structures encourages listeners to cultivate their own creativity.
