Peter Phillips

Peter Phillips (born 15 October 1953) is a British choral conductor and musicologist.

He is the founder of the Tallis Scholars as well as Gimell Records.

Phillips was born in Southampton and educated at Winchester College (1967–71) and St John's College, Oxford (Organ Scholar 1972–75).

He studied music with Hugh Macdonald, Denis Arnold and David Wulstan.

Phillips's first concert with the Tallis Scholars took place in St Mary Magdalen's Church in Oxford on 3 November 1973.

The group was made up of choral scholars (hence the use of the word 'Scholars' in the title) and layclerks from the leading Oxbridge choral foundations.

From the beginning, Phillips aimed to produce a distinctive sound, influenced by choirs he admired, in particular the Clerkes of Oxenford.

However the repertoire he chose was idiosyncratic, based in his desire to explore neglected corners of the polyphonic repertories, continental as much as English.

This first concert included music by Obrecht, Ockeghem and Lassus.

Phillips began an association with Merton College Chapel in 1974 when, as an undergraduate, he directed Tallis's 'Why fum'th in fight' as a prelude to a performance of Vaughan Williams's Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis.

The Tallis Scholars recorded regularly in Merton Chapel between 1976 and 1987, returning more permanently in 2005.

Phillips first met the composer John Tavener in 1977, which led to a lifelong friendship.

After the foundation of Gimell Records in 1980, the Tallis Scholars have gone on to fill many gaps in the recording catalogue, making discs devoted to such relatively unknown composers as Obrecht, Ockeghem, Cardoso, White, Clemens, Gombert and Mouton.

He lectured on the John Hall pre-University course in Venice from 1981 to 2019.

In 1985 Phillips was invited to conduct the Chapelle Royale of Paris (by Philippe Herreweghe), and the Netherlands Chamber Choir, which sparked a lifelong interest in working with groups trained outside the Anglican choral tradition.

These invitations also promoted in Phillips an interest in European culture, cuisines and languages.

Since winning the Gramophone Record of the Year Award in 1987, the Tallis Scholars have been recognised as perhaps the world's leading ensemble in interpreting renaissance polyphony.

That 1987 disc inaugurated a career-long project of recording all of Josquin des Prez’s masses, ready for the 500th anniversary of the composer’s death, in 2021.

The ninth and last disc in the series also won an Award entitled Record of the Year – from the BBC Music Magazine – in 2021, 34 years after the first one.

He subsequently taught at Oxford University, Trinity College of Music and the Royal College of Music in London (where he directed the Chamber Choir in succession to David Willcocks), but had resigned all these posts by 1988 in order to pursue a full-time career in conducting.

Phillips gave his first Promenade concert in 1988, since when he has appeared eight more times, always with the Tallis Scholars, though in 2007 also with the BBC Singers, when the two groups joined forces to give the first modern performance of Striggio's 60-part Mass Ecco si beato giorno.

He has owned property in Paris since 1989 and given interviews in French, German, Italian and Spanish.

He is also a student of Arabic (in which he has not given an interview).

As of 2021, The Tallis Scholars have given more than two-thirds of their 2500 concerts outside the UK.

In 1990 Phillips was the subject of a South Bank Show, introduced by Melvyn Bragg.

It followed the course of renaissance polyphony through England and the Netherlands and was entitled "A Personal Odyssey".

For many years Tavener was the only living composer to write for The Tallis Scholars, a connection which resulted in such masterpieces as the Ikon of Light, the Lords Prayer (1999), Let not the Prince be silent, Tribute to Cavafy and The Requiem Fragments.

In 2000 Peter Phillips and David Woodcock set up the first Tallis Scholars Summer School in Oakham.

Phillips started a collaboration with the BBC Singers in 2003, with whom he has now appeared in nearly 25 productions, most recently in May 2021 in a live broadcast from Maida Vale, featuring Mexican polyphony written for Puebla Cathedral.

He also currently has projects in preparation with Intrada (Moscow), The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir (Tallinn), El Leon de Oro (Oviedo), The Nederlands Chamber Choir and The Taipei Chamber Singers.

This was followed in 2005 by an extension in Seattle (US), and in 2007 by one in Sydney (Australia).

He has also been involved with similar courses in Rimini, Evora and Barcelona.

In 2006, with the help of Jessica Rawson and Simon Jones, Phillips established a new choral foundation at the College.

This choir sang its first services under Phillips and Benjamin Nicholas in October 2008.

In 2013 he directed the Tallis Scholars in a 99-concert year of events, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the group.

In more recent years Phillips has commissioned Eric Whitacre, Gabriel Jackson, Nico Muhly, Ivan Moody, John Woolrich, Matthew Martin, Christopher Willcock, Michael Nyman; and in 2014 made a disc entirely dedicated to Arvo Pärt's tintinnabuli style.

Phillips and The Tallis Scholars appeared at the Proms on 4 August 2014 to help mark the anniversary of the outbreak of World War I, with a Requiem written for them by John Tavener, televised on BBC 4.

Amongst other countries they visited New Zealand for the first time, Australia for the seventh time, Japan for the 14th time, and the US for the 61st.

In 2014 Phillips helped to establish the first of three London International Choral Competitions at St John's Smith Square.

In 2018 they returned to the Albert Hall to sing a specially adapted Compline service.