- At the Sydney 2008 Tallis Scholars Summer School
Peter Phillips’s biography –
updated 5th November 2011
‘This way Phillips has of conjuring intensity is fascinating, because it seems to rise out of the music itself as an inner glow. You register the effect of rising emotional heat, but not its cause.’ Ivan Hewett in the Daily Telegraph, April 2011.
‘The restrained decorations particularly benefited from one of Phillips’s special skills: an uncanny
ability to increase emotional intensity so subtly that you don’t realise it’s happening. Then, suddenly, pow! The music’s blazing; so are you.’ Geoff Brown in the Times – October 2011.
Peter Phillips has made an impressive if unusual reputation for himself in dedicating his life’s work to the research and performance of Renaissance polyphony. Having won a scholarship to Oxford in 1972, Peter Phillips studied Renaissance music with David Wulstan and Denis Arnold, and gained experience in conducting small vocal ensembles, already experimenting with the rarer parts of the repertoire. He founded the Tallis Scholars in 1973, with whom he has now appeared in over 1750 concerts and made over 50 discs, encouraging interest in polyphony all over the world. As a result of his work, through concerts, recordings, magazine awards and publishing editions of the music and writing articles, Renaissance music has come to be accepted for the first time as part of the mainstream classical repertoire.
Apart from the Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips continues to work with other specialist ensembles. He has appeared with the Collegium Vocale of Ghent and the Netherlands Chamber Choir, and is currently working with the Choeur de Chambre de Namur, Intrada of Moscow, Musica Reservata of Barcelona and the Tudor Choir of Seattle. Peter also works extensively with the BBC Singers with whom he gave a Promenade concert, in collaboration with the Tallis Scholars, from the Royal Albert Hall in July 2007. He gives numerous master-classes and choral workshops every year around the world – amongst other places in Rimini (Italy), Evora (Portugal) and Barcelona (Spain) – and is also Artistic Director of theTallis Scholars Summer Schools: annual choral courses based in Uppingham (UK), Seattle (USA) and Sydney (Australia) dedicated to exploring the heritage of renaissance choral music, and developing a performance style appropriate to it as pioneered by The Tallis Scholars.
In addition to conducting, Peter Phillips is well-known as a writer. For 29 years he has contributed a regular music column (as well as one, more briefly, on cricket) to The Spectator. In 1995 he became the owner and Publisher of The Musical Times, the oldest continuously published music journal in the world. His first book, English Sacred Music 1549–1649, was published by Gimell in 1991, while his second, What We Really Do,
an unblinking account of what touring is like, alongside insights about the make-up and performance of polyphony, was published in 2003. A revised edition is planned for publication in 2013.
Peter Phillips has made numerous television and radio broadcasts. Besides those featuring The Tallis Scholars (which include live broadcasts from the 2001,2003, 2007, 2008 and 2011 Proms, the 2007 Edinburgh Festival, the Aldeburgh Festival and the Bath Festival), he has appeared several times on the BBC’s Music Weekly and on the BBC World Service, on Kaleidoscope (BBC Radio 4), on Today (BBC Radio 4), National Public Radio in the US and on German, French and Canadian radio, where he has enjoyed deploying his love of languages. In 1990 ITV’s The South Bank Show featured Peter’s ‘personal odyssey’ with the Tallis Scholars; while in 2002 a special television documentary was made for the BBC about the life and times of William Byrd.
Peter has recently been appointed a Reed Rubin Director of Music and Bodley Fellow at Merton College, Oxford, where the new choral foundation he helped to establish began singing services in October 2008. They gave their first live broadcast on BBC Radio Three’s Choral Evensong in October 2011. In 2005 Peter Phillips was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture, a decoration intended to honour individuals who have contributed to the understanding of French culture in the world.
Shorter version:
‘Peter Phillips has made an impressive if unusual reputation for himself in dedicating his life’s work to the research and performance of Renaissance
polyphony. Having won a scholarship to Oxford in 1972, Peter Phillips studied Renaissance music with David Wulstan and Denis Arnold. He founded the Tallis Scholars in 1973, with whom he has now appeared in over 1750 concerts and made over 50 discs, encouraging interest in polyphony all over the world.
Apart from The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips continues to work with other specialist ensembles, currently appearing regularly with the Choeur de Chambre de Namur, Intrada of Moscow, Musica Reservata of Barcelona and the Tudor Choir of Seattle. He has made numerous television and radio appearances, on BBC Radio 4 and the World Service as well as on German, French, Canadian and North American radio, where he has enjoyed deploying his love of languages. Peter also works extensively with the BBC Singers with whom he gave a Promenade concert, in collaboration with the Tallis Scholars, from the Royal Albert Hall in July 2007.
As well as leading numerous masterclasses and choral workshops every year, Peter Phillips is Artistic Director of the Tallis Scholars Summer Schools – annual choral courses based in Uppingham (UK), Seattle (USA) and Sydney (Australia) dedicated to exploring the heritage of renaissance choral music, and developing an appropriate performance style. Peter has recently been appointed a Reed Rubin Director of Music and Bodley Fellow at Merton College, Oxford, where the new choral foundation he helped to establish began singing services in October 2008.
In 2005 Peter Phillips was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture, a decoration intended to honour individuals who have contributed to the understanding of French culture in the world.
Peter’s personal website is at www.tallisman.wordpress.com
Previous biographies have appeared in Dutch, French, Portugese and Spanish. View all translations.
