If a cell phone starts ringing in South Korea, Brian Crain can guess whose tune it probably is.

His.

Crain, 34, an Idaho composer and pianist who will perform in Bismarck on Oct. 16, reportedly has become quite the popular item in that country. His "Butterfly Waltz" in particular is a hot cell phone ringer there.

He says his music is used on commercials, television and movies and is on compilation albums with the likes of singer Enya and pianist George Winston. When he toured South Korea earlier this year, he was a guest on a Jay Leno-type show there. His meal experiences at restaurants were peppered with autograph requests.

This from someone who began whistling his own made-up melodies at age 3, but then took a U-turn away from music, quit piano lessons after quickly getting bored, and didn't look back for years.

And even when he looked back, it wasn't to go to music school. It's all self-taught, he said in a recent interview.

At age 15, he was editing educational films for his dad, William Crain - who at the time was a top educational filmmaker - and dreaming of a baseball career.

He said his dad impressed upon him and his other children to try everything because "You don't know if you can do it until you try." Brian Crain said he thinks that message from his dad is why he and his siblings have the kinds of lives they do.

One brother, age 23, is done working on Will Smith's "I, Robot" and is now a crew member of a Fred Savage and Robin Williams movie being made in Australia. Another brother will be the steady-cam cameraman for the next Donald Trump "Apprentice" show. And their sister, 18, is studying photography at Brooks Institute.

At age 17, Crain started plunking on the piano again, but didn't, and still doesn't, know how to read music. His family started urging him to record a CD, but that wouldn't happen for awhile.

In his teen years and early adulthood, he focused instead on his dreams of a baseball career until the Florida Marlins told him that they thought his pitching was great, but he was too old at age 23. The team was bringing up teenagers from the Dominican Republic, he said.

So for years he earned his daily bread as a filmmaker. Doing sound work for Johnny Depp's movie "Benny and Joon" kept him occupied for awhile. He said most people in the movie business are indeed the stereotype - self-centered, difficult and such. But Depp is an exception - "a lot of fun to hang out with."

It was in his mid-20s that Crain started recording his music, and at a 1996 craft fair in Oregon, he found out that people liked what he did and bought it.

Now it's 10 albums later, and he has sold more than 100,000 CDs in the United States. More overseas travel for Crain happens this year with another tour to South Korea and then on to China and back to the U.S. But first it is Bismarck where he developed a following by coming here to sell CDs at street fairs.

"Bismarck is one of the best and most responsive crowds," he said.

Joining him for the Oct. 16 concert will be violinist Laura Prokopyk, the new concertmaster of the Bismarck-Mandan Symphony Orchestra.

Also performing with Crain will be David Hunt, a symphony bassist for several Northwest orchestras, and violinists Terry and Jerry Fairchild, twins, age 17, who are musicians with the Spokane Youth Orchestra.

Tickets for the 7 p.m. Oct. 16 concert at the Belle Mehus City Auditorium are $15 and available at briancrain.com, or Eckroth Music or call 1-888-292-7426.