Phil Schurger is an internationally recognized composer and guitarist. HIs most recent album "Echoes of the Ancestors", released on the Chicago based record label Ear and Eyes, has received radio play in Europe, South America, the United States, and Canada. The Chicago Artist's Resource says of his music: "Indiana native Phil Schurger's wide-ranging compositions and colorfully intense guitar playing are a rare treat: a cinematic meditation - blending both rock and jazz with a sense of drama and the mystical." Phil has been playing professionally since the age of 17. He has played throughout the United States, and Europe sharing the stage with such artists as the Wailers, Fareed Haque (Sting, Dizzy Gillespie, Joe Zawinul), Ravi Coltrane, Greg Ward (Marquis Hill, Makaya McCraven), Nick Roth (Yurodny Ensemble), and Bolokada Conde (Mickey Hart). He holds both a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Music from Northern Illinois University where he studied with jazz guitar with Fareed Haque, and composition with David Maki (Michael Daugherty) and Robert Fleischer (Frank Zappa). Schurger is an Assistant Professor at the University of Saint Francis, where he teaches Music Theory, Ear Training, and Ensembles (Jazz, Electronic Music, and Guitar).
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“Phil Schurger’s wide-ranging compositions and colorfully intense guitar playing are a rare treat: a cinematic meditation – blending rock and jazz with a sense of both drama and the mystical.” - Chicago Artists Resource
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"Echoes of the Ancestors" stretches out with epic compositions that move between different states. Deep grooves and luminescent melodies emerge in compositions that seem to stand still in the eye of a storm. In other words, they are both dynamic and reflective." -Jakob Baekgaard, All About Jazz
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"A listener needn’t be a mystic to appreciate his music, which possesses a Coltrane-like expansiveness. Fluctuating tempos and spiraling improvisations lend Schurger’s music a mysterious quality, and even the composed passages are chromatic. The playing throughout is accomplished, especially the interaction between Schurger and Ward" -Ed Kopp, Jazziz (Winter print edition)