Bio
Paul Phillips, Professor of Music and the Gretchen B. Kimball Director of Orchestral Studies, has conducted more than 80 orchestras, opera companies, and ballet troupes worldwide, including the San Francisco Symphony, Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra and Choir, and Paul Taylor Dance Company. His conducting discography includes two discs with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and five Naxos recordings with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra (Ireland), Slovak Philharmonic, and Brown University Orchestra. Bayerische Staatsoper’s 2022 DVD “Mavra/Iolanta” features Phillips’s chamber arrangement of Stravinsky’s “Mavra”, published by Boosey & Hawkes.
At Stanford, Phillips conducts the Stanford Symphony Orchestra, Stanford Philharmonia, and Stanford Summer Symphony, and teaches Conducting, “Black Music Revealed”, “Harmonic Convergence: Music’s Intersections with Science, Mathematics, History, and Literature”, and “Russian Modernists: Stravinsky and Shostakovich”. He served as President of the Western Region of the College Orchestra Directors Association from 2022-24 and is a member of the League of American Orchestras, International Conductors Guild, and ASCAP.
Phillips has conducted concerts featuring Itzhak Perlman, Dave Brubeck, Dizzy Gillespie, Tony Bennett, Ray Charles, and many other great classical and jazz soloists, and collaborated with Steve Reich, William Bolcom, Adolphus Hailstork, and many other leading composers. He has conducted over 1000 works in performance – orchestral, choral, opera, music theatre, and dance – and led over 100 world, US, and regional premieres. His many honors include 11 ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music, 1st Prize in the NOS International Conductors Course (Holland) and Wiener Meisterkurse Conductors Course (Vienna), selection for the Exxon/Arts Endowment Conductors Program, and the Harriet W. Sheridan Award for Distinguished Contribution to Teaching and Learning at Brown University,
“The Devil Prefers Mozart: On Music and Musicians, 1962-1993”, a collection of 75 writings on music by Anthony Burgess that Phillips compiled and edited, was published by Carcanet Press in 2024 and selected by the "Financial Times" as one of its three “Best Summer Books of 2024 in Classical Music”. Phillips’s earlier book, “A Clockwork Counterpoint: The Music and Literature of Anthony Burgess”, is a groundbreaking monograph that has been hailed in the press as “prodigiously researched, elegantly written” and “seamlessly fascinating”. Phillips’s article “The Enigma of ‘Variations’: A Study of Stravinsky’s Final Work for Orchestra” in “Music Analysis” is cited by Richard Taruskin in “Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions” as “the best exposition in print of Stravinsky’s serial methods.”
Phillips's compositions include opera, ballet, orchestral works, choral music, song cycles, keyboard and chamber music, music for theatre, and works for young audiences. His latest work, "Sweet Thunder" for 12 pianos, premiered in San Francisco in 2024. As a pianist, Phillips has performed at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival, Orvieto Musica, and Carnegie Recital Hall, and recorded for film and television.
Phillips attended Eastman, Columbia, and Cincinnati along with Tanglewood, Aspen, and other music festivals, where he studied conducting with Leonard Bernstein, Kurt Masur, Gunther Schuller, and many others. He began his career at the Frankfurt Opera and Stadttheater Lüneburg followed by positions with the Greensboro Symphony, Greensboro Opera, Maryland Symphony, and Savannah Symphony. From 1989-2017, he was Director of Orchestras and Chamber Music at Brown University. During that time, he also served as Associate Conductor of the Rhode Island Philharmonic (1989-92) and Music Director of the Pioneer Valley Symphony Orchestra and Chorus (1994-2017).
Academic Appointments
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Professor (Teaching), Music
Administrative Appointments
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Co-Chair – Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, Department of Music (2022 - 2024)
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Chair – Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, Department of Music (2021 - 2022)
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Member – COVID Reopening Group, Department of Music (2020 - 2022)
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Member – Library Committee, Department of Music (2019 - 2022)
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Chair – Conducting Major Curriculum Review, Department of Music (2018 - 2020)
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Member – Curriculum Review Task Force, Department of Music (2018 - 2020)
Honors & Awards
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ASCAP Plus Awards (annual), ASCAP (1996-2015, 2017-2023)
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Harriet W. Sheridan Award for Distinguished Contribution to Teaching and Learning, Brown University (2016)
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NCFO Commission Competition, 1st Prize, North Cambridge Family Opera (Massachusetts) (2013)
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Honorary Patron, International Anthony Burgess Foundation (Manchester, UK) (2011)
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Fellowship in Music Composition, Rhode Island State Council on the Arts (1998, 2000, 2006, 2014, 2016)
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Artist Project Grant, Rhode Island State Council on the Arts (1994, 1996, 2005, 2009, 2012, 2016)
Boards, Advisory Committees, Professional Organizations
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President, College Orchestra Directors Association (CODA), Western Region (2022 - 2024)
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President-Elect, College Orchestra Directors Association (CODA), Western Region (2021 - 2022)
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Vice-President, College Orchestra Directors Association (CODA), Western Region (2020 - 2021)
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Member, College Orchestra Directors Association (CODA) (2017 - Present)
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Music Advisor, International Anthony Burgess Foundation (2015 - Present)
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Honorary Patron, International Anthony Burgess Foundation (2010 - Present)
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Member, College Music Society (1986 - 2023)
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Member, Conductors Guild (1986 - Present)
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Publisher (Barnard Street Music), ASCAP (The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) (1984 - Present)
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Composer, ASCAP (The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) (1984 - Present)
Professional Education
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MM, University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Orchestral Conducting (1982)
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MA, Columbia University, Composition (1980)
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BA cum laude, Columbia University, Music (1978)
Current Research and Scholarly Interests
My current project is to complete a recording of orchestral compositions by Adolphus Hailstork to be released commercially in 2025. The recording will include recordings of "Tulsa 1921: Pity These Ashes, Pity This Dust", "Elegy for a Man Who Dreamed", "Three Spirituals", and other compositions by Hailstork recorded by Stanford Philharmonia and the Stanford Symphony Orchestra under my direction.
Projects
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Music of Adolphus Hailstork, Stanford Symphony Orchestra & Stanford Philharmonia (5/2022)
new recording of compositions by the American composer Adolphus Hailstork (born 1941)
Location
Stanford, California
2024-25 Courses
- Advanced Orchestral Conducting
MUSIC 230 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Elementary Instrumental Conducting
MUSIC 130B (Spr) - Stanford New Ensemble
MUSIC 160B (Aut) - Stanford New Ensemble
MUSIC 160BZ (Aut) - Stanford Philharmonia
MUSIC 160A (Aut, Win, Spr) - Stanford Philharmonia
MUSIC 160AZ (Aut, Win, Spr) - Stanford Symphony Orchestra
MUSIC 160 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Stanford Symphony Orchestra
MUSIC 160Z (Aut, Win, Spr) -
Independent Studies (5)
- Concentrations Project
MUSIC 198 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Independent Study
MUSIC 199 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Independent Study
MUSIC 299 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - MA/MST Capstone Project
MUSIC 298 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - PhD Dissertation Proposal
MUSIC 398 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum)
- Concentrations Project
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Prior Year Courses
2023-24 Courses
- Advanced Orchestral Conducting
MUSIC 230 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Elementary Instrumental Conducting
MUSIC 130B (Aut) - Intermediate Conducting: Music Since 1900
MUSIC 136 (Spr) - Stanford Philharmonia
MUSIC 160A (Aut, Win, Spr) - Stanford Philharmonia
MUSIC 160AZ (Aut, Win, Spr) - Stanford Summer Symphony
MUSIC 160S (Sum) - Stanford Summer Symphony
MUSIC 160SZ (Sum) - Stanford Symphony Orchestra
MUSIC 160 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Stanford Symphony Orchestra
MUSIC 160Z (Aut, Win, Spr)
2022-23 Courses
- Advanced Orchestral Conducting
MUSIC 230 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Black Music Revealed: Black composers, performers, and themes from the 18th century to the present
CSRE 35N, MUSIC 35N (Win) - Elementary Instrumental Conducting
MUSIC 130B (Aut) - Stanford Philharmonia
MUSIC 160A (Aut, Win, Spr) - Stanford Philharmonia
MUSIC 160AZ (Aut, Win, Spr) - Stanford Summer Symphony
MUSIC 160S (Sum) - Stanford Summer Symphony
MUSIC 160SZ (Sum) - Stanford Symphony Orchestra
MUSIC 160 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Stanford Symphony Orchestra
MUSIC 160Z (Aut, Win, Spr)
2021-22 Courses
- Advanced Orchestral Conducting
MUSIC 230 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Elementary Instrumental Conducting
MUSIC 130B (Aut) - Intermediate Conducting: Music Since 1900
MUSIC 136 (Spr) - Stanford Philharmonia
MUSIC 160A (Aut, Win, Spr) - Stanford Philharmonia
MUSIC 160AZ (Aut, Win, Spr) - Stanford Summer Symphony
MUSIC 160S (Sum) - Stanford Summer Symphony
MUSIC 160SZ (Sum) - Stanford Symphony Orchestra
MUSIC 160 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Stanford Symphony Orchestra
MUSIC 160Z (Aut, Win, Spr)
- Advanced Orchestral Conducting
All Publications
- The Devil Prefers Mozart: On Music and Musicians, 1962-1993 edited by Phillips, P. Carcanet. 2024
- A Clockwork Counterpoint: The Music and Literature of Anthony Burgess Manchester University Press. 2010
- Musique pour la France d'Antoine Bourgeois Anthony Burgess et la France edited by Jeannin, M. Presses Universitaires de Rennes. 2019: 27–39
- Musique pour la France d'Antoine Bourgeois Anthony Burgess and France edited by Jeannin, M. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2017: 27–39
- Mr A.B. and 'Mr W.S.': Burgess's Shakespeare Ballet Marlowe, Shakespeare, Burgess: Anthony Burgess and his Elizabethan Affiliations edited by Woodroffe, G. Presses de l'Université d'Angers. 2012: 127–34
- Burgess and Music A Clockwork Orange edited by Rawlinson, M. W.W. Norton & Company. 2011: 236–45
- That Man and Music: Ten Reasons Why Anthony Burgess's Music Matters Anthony Burgess: Music in Literature and Literature in Music edited by Jeannin, M. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2009: 7–19
- The postmodernist always swings nice Anthony Burgess and Modernity edited by Roughley, A. R. Manchester University Press. 2008: 79–94
- Alex in Eden: Prologue and Music to Burgess's Dramatisation of 'A Clockwork Orange' Portraits of the Artist in 'A Clockwork Orange' edited by Vernadakis, E., Woodroffe, G. Presses de l'Université d'Angers. 2003: 113–29