Paul Phillips (conductor)

{{Short description|American conductor, composer and music scholar (b.1956)}}

Paul Schuyler Phillips (born April 28, 1956) is an American conductor, composer and music scholar. He is the Gretchen B. Kimball Director of Orchestral Studies,{{Cite web|url=https://music.stanford.edu/people/paul-phillips|title = Paul Phillips | Department of Music}} and Professor of Music at Stanford University, where he directs the Stanford Symphony Orchestra, Stanford Philharmonia, and Stanford Summer Symphony. He has written on Igor Stravinsky and Anthony Burgess.{{Cite web|url=http://news.stanford.edu/2017/06/12/new-conductor-appointed-stanford-symphony-orchestra-stanford-philharmonia/|title = New conductor appointed for Stanford Symphony Orchestra and Stanford Philharmonia|date = 12 June 2017}}

File:Paul Phillips, Conductor.jpg

Conducting

In 1982 Phillips became Michael Gielen’s conducting assistant at the Frankfurt Opera, and was appointed 1st Kapellmeister and Chorus Director at Stadttheater Lüneburg the following year.{{Cite web |title=Carcanet Press - Paul Phillips |url=https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?owner_id=1938 |access-date=2024-06-17 |website=www.carcanet.co.uk}} Following positions at the Greensboro Symphony, the Maryland Symphony Orchestra, and the Savannah Symphony, in 1989 Phillips became Director of Orchestras and Chamber Music at Brown University{{Cite web |title=Paul Phillips |url=https://music.columbia.edu/content/paul-phillips |website=Columbia University}} concurrent with an appointment as Associate Conductor of the Rhode Island Philharmonic. In 1994 he was named Music Director and Conductor of the Pioneer Valley Symphony & Chorus. In 2017 Phillips became Director of Orchestral Studies at Stanford.

Music scholarship

Phillips is the editor of The Devil Prefers Mozart: On Music and Musicians, 1962-1993 by Anthony Burgess and author of A Clockwork Counterpoint: The Music and Literature of Anthony Burgess, which examines the relationship between Burgess's music and his writings.{{Cite journal|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/514833/pdf|title=A Clockwork Counterpoint: The Music and Literature of Anthony Burgess by Paul Phillips (Review)|journal=Music, Sound, and the Moving Image|year=2013|volume=7|issue=1|pages=95–99|last1=Rowley|first1=Carly Eloise}} Phillips has written an encyclopedia entry on Burgess and several articles on the composer.{{Cite book |title=Anthony Burgess: Music in Literature and Literature in Music |id={{ASIN|1443811165|country=uk}} }}

In 1999 Phillips was featured as a performer and commentator on Anthony Burgess's music in the BBC television documentary The Burgess Variations, directed by David Thompson.{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2803888/fullcredits |title=The Burgess Variations (TV Mini Series 1999– ) - IMDb |language=en |access-date=2024-06-19 |via=m.imdb.com}}

Composition

=Concert works=

Sweet Thunder [12 pianos], 2023

Brass Knuckles [orch], 2016

Wave [orch], 2014

Battle-Pieces (Melville) [B & piano; also B & orchestra], 2011

War Music Suite (Logue) [STB soli & orchestra], 2009

A/B: A 90th Birthday Celebration of Anthony Burgess (Phillips) [actor & chamber ensemble], 2007

Invocation (Rumi) [S, fl, pf], 2004

Black Notes and White [brass, perc, org], 2001

Three Burgess Lyrics (Burgess) [SATB chorus, vln, pf], 1999

Celestial Harmonies [ballet for string orch], 1997

Brownian Motion [orch], 1995

Come On Out and Play (Harley) [singer-narrator & orch], 1996 (based on a story by singer/songwriter Bill Harley)

Miracle Songs (various) [S & piano], 1987

=Stage works=

War Music (Christopher Logue), 2005, rev. 2006

90-minute music theatre piece based on Logue's adaptation of The Iliad. Commissioned by the RI-based performance ensemble Aurea; premiered September 2005 at the FirstWorksProv Festival in Providence, Rhode Island; revived 2006 at the Chicago Humanities Festival and 2007 at the New York Festival of the Humanities.

Mann ist Mann (Brecht), 1984

Dorothees Abenteuer im Lande des Zauberers von Ooz [Dorothy's Adventures in the Land of the Wizard of Oz] (Baum), 1983

Pericles (Shakespeare), 1978