From the Wheat City to knighthood

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/02/2022 (1319 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

While Evan Wish’s career as a contemporary pianist has taken him to different parts of the world, he didn’t expect to be standing in a 13th-century Italian monastery last October.

Unlikely or not, the ceremony at the Abbey of Santo Spirito d’Ocre did move forward, where the former Brandon resident was knighted into the Order of Saint Georges de Bourgogne.

The Order of Saint Georges has been around for hundreds of years and currently operates as an international confraternity that recognizes people for their charity work and contributions to the global community at large.

Sir Wish told the Sun in January that he isn’t taking his appointment under the “international music” category lightly, and considers the new title to be the biggest honour he’s received in his roughly 40-year career in the industry.

“One of the things about being knighted is you make a promise to the church,” Wish said over the phone from Los Angeles, where he currently resides. “I’ve never been a super-religious person, but you make a promise to uphold certain values.”

Since the Order of Saint Georges demands that its members abide by the eternal merit of chivalry, Wish now feels like he has a moral responsibility to “give back” to his supporters, which involves letting people know about how his journey into music began.

After all, the 63-year-old strongly believes that none of his success would be possible if not for the mentorship, guidance and financial support he received in Manitoba and abroad.

Humble beginnings

After being born in Gimli and growing up in Arborg, Wish officially began his formal piano studies in the Wheat City at the age of seven, learning under a private teacher in association with Brandon University.

At the age of nine, he took part in the first of many recitals on the university campus, an experience that solidified his love of performing in front of a crowd.

“This is the backbone of my studying. This was the foundation. This was the concrete pad that set me on my way,” he said. “Because I was so young that it became ingrained in me. It becomes muscle memory, like being an athlete. It just becomes a part of you.”

But Wish didn’t just relegate himself to the piano — he decided to branch out by playing the oboe in the city orchestra and the saxophone in a local jazz band.

Combined with all the usual schoolwork and extracurricular activities that one would expect from an active teenager, Wish admitted life became a little too much to bear by the time he turned 18, convincing him to leave home and spend the next year and a half living in Fort Smith, N.W.T.

While being away from his family was difficult, Wish managed to funnel all the isolation and depression he felt into composing his very first song, which convinced him a career in music is something he wanted to pursue.

“It was at that point that I really wanted to do it,” he said. “I really wanted to know more about that process.”

After returning to Manitoba, Wish quickly put this idea to the test in Winnipeg, where he learned how to write his music on manuscript paper and booked a variety of jobs in the arts.

That included working as a pianist for a travelling theatre troupe, providing musical accompaniment for ballet classes and spearheading a music program for preschoolers.

Even though the gigs were fulfilling, the young musician still felt like he needed more formal training to reach his true potential, with the Dick Grove School of Music eventually catching his eye.

Since the private school was operating out of Los Angeles, Wish knew he couldn’t enter the program by pure talent alone and would need substantial financial backing to get in the door.

Following a lot of back and forth with members of the federal and provincial governments, Wish finally secured a special opportunity loan worth around $20,000.

To this day, he still can’t believe that he procured that much money, although he remains eternally grateful that multiple levels of government decided to invest in such an unproven entity.

“By giving me the money, you took a chance on someone,” Wish said, addressing those government officials directly. “You took a chance on someone who is only 21 years old, and I came [to California] when I was 23, and look what happened.”

Pinpointing a signature sound

The 1980s proved to be a busy time for Wish, even after he graduated from the Dick Grove School of Music at the age of 25.

By living in the entertainment hub of America, he was able to learn under famous composers like Bill Conti, Nelson Riddle and Jack Elliott, who all helped him expand his horizons on writing different kinds of music.

This journey of self-discovery reached a major turning point when Wish started working for actor Philip Michael Thomas, who was carving out a career in music on top of his roles on film and television shows like “Miami Vice.”

“I actually met Philip Michael Thomas while I was going to school, and he sang my first-year graduation piece,” he said.

“He’s a very good singer. Before he was a TV star he was a singer and dancer in the Broadway show ‘Hair’ and stuff like that.”

During his time working for Thomas in Miami, Fla., Wish also got the opportunity to perform at a local club on a regular basis, where he insisted on playing his own original music.

The pianist maintained this same principle when he returned to Los Angeles for more steady work, feeling that he needed to firmly establish his reputation as an artist who could create rather than simply replicate.

“If you’re doing cover songs, you’re a cover artist,” he said. “If you’re trying to make a break in the world or you’re trying to be somebody, you’ve got to come out with something original.”

However, by the mid-1990s, Wish started to grow disillusioned with the “cutthroat” nature of the Hollywood music scene, and eventually decided to ply his trade in front of an international audience instead.

After meeting and marrying a French-American citizen, Wish received a second wind in his career by performing in France, since it helped him reconnect with the emotional core of his music.

“I figured if I’m going to take a chance in life, I’m going to take it as an artist doing my music from the heart,” he said.

“The emotion of the French people gravitated to me right away, because my music is emotional. You can hear it.”

Building up a back catalogue

The emotional nature of Wish’s music eventually manifested in his debut album “Lullaby of Love,” which was released in 2004.

The album was recorded in the wake of his father’s death from a year earlier and was designed to help the musician mourn the passing of a family member who he didn’t get to see as often as he would have liked.

“When you get older you realize your regrets,” he said. “And that goes into the music, because I write from emotion. I write from my heart.”

But the project wasn’t all sadness and despair, since it also marked the beginning of Wish’s long-term collaboration with Peter Granet.

Working with Granet on this initial project was a big deal for Wish, knowing that the Grammy-nominated recording engineer had helped produce work for artists like Linda Ronstadt, Ravi Shankar, George Harrison and The Rolling Stones.

“I was a kid, sitting in my basement in the east end of Brandon, listening to my older brother’s records where Peter Granet was the engineer,” he recalled.

“And then I come to America and I’m hanging out at a dinner party, the girl puts on a cassette tape of mine that I made, and Peter Granet is talking to me about recording. That’s magical.”

Granet would go on to help Wish develop his next two albums, the last of which came out in 2020.

While Wish had planned to go on tour in Japan to promote this latest project, titled “Alone in a Crowd,” the COVID-19 pandemic inevitably reared its ugly head and forced him to cancel those shows.

But even without this fresh round of in-person exposure, Wish’s back catalogue still managed to attract the attention of at least one member of the Order of Saint Georges that following summer, who believed the musician would be an excellent candidate for knighthood.

Outside of the music, Wish was also being recognized for his charity work with groups like Chrysalis and the Black AIDS Institute, which has been a major focus of his career since his second album, “Forget-Me-Not, Blue,” dropped in 2010.

“Ever since I worked with kids in Winnipeg, I’ve always been focused on helping out children, since they’re the future,” he said.

“I’m just there playing the piano. I’m the entertainment. I’m the background. But I’m doing some good.”

And after a number of delays due to the pandemic, Wish’s induction into the Order of Saint Georges finally took place this past fall, and has left him looking for a way to fulfil his new vows ever since.

“It doesn’t mean anything unless you do something with it,” he said. “And what could I possibly do with it? Well, I can give back. I can give back and say ‘thank you’ to the people who gave me the money and actually believed in me.”

Wish has made some headway in his campaign to thank the people and the institutions that made his career possible.

On Jan. 25, he received a response letter from Minister of Sport, Culture and Heritage Andrew Smith, who congratulated the musician for the new title while also providing some resources on how to support the career of emerging local musicians.

Wish told the Sun he would love to return to Manitoba in the future and support some of the same music programs that he spearheaded in Brandon and Winnipeg all those years ago.

“So if I can do something for the arts, why not? I would be honoured. I would be honoured to come back and play,” he said.

Even though the task may be difficult given the complex nature of international travel right now, Wish encouraged all up-and-coming artists in Westman to stay the course in the meantime, believing that their passion for the craft will inevitably shine through and lead to their own version of success.

“I don’t believe in doing music to fit into anything,” the pianist said. “You do music because you can do music. You paint a picture because you can paint a picture. If you stick with what you have … it will find its own way.”

» kdarbyson@brandonsun.com

» Twitter:@KyleDarbyson