PAUL SCHUYLER PHILLIPS, Director of Orchestras and Chamber Music at Brown University, is an award-winning musician whose talents encompass a wide range of musical activities. Acclaimed as a conductor “who was born to stand on a podium,” his honors include 1st Prize in the NOS International Conductors Course in Holland, 1st Prize in the Wiener Meisterkurse Conductors Course in Vienna, selection for the Exxon/Arts Endowment Conductors Program, and eight ASCAP Awards for “Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music”. He has appeared with more than 50 orchestras worldwide, including the Dallas Symphony, Detroit Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, Louisville Orchestra, Charlotte Symphony, Columbus Symphony, Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra and Iceland Symphony Orchestra, with which he has recorded two compact disks.

In 1982, Phillips accepted Michael Gielen’s invitation to serve as his assistant and coach/conductor at the Frankfurt Opera, thus beginning his professional career. Following an engagement as 1st Kapellmeister at Stadttheater Lüneburg in Germany, he returned to the US, assuming conducting posts with the Greensboro Symphony, Greensboro Opera and Savannah Symphony. In 1989, he assumed his current position as Director of Orchestras and Chamber Music at Brown University concurrent with an appointment as Associate Conductor of the Rhode Island Philharmonic. In 1994, he was named Music Director of the Pioneer Valley Symphony & Chorus, and during his tenure with that organization has led it to new artistic heights and recognition as one of the leading arts institutions in western Massachusetts.

Phillips possesses a conducting repertoire of over 900 works encompassing much of the standard orchestral repertoire. He has conducted opera, musical theatre and ballet extensively, including productions of Candide, Carmen, Die Fledermaus, Don Pasquale, The Magic Flute, The Medium, Nutcracker, The Pirates of Penzance, Sweeney Todd and Tosca with companies that include the Boston Academy of Music, Commonwealth Opera, Ocean State Lyric Opera, Opera Providence, Connecticut Concert Ballet, Festival Ballet of Rhode Island and the Wisconsin Dance Ensemble. He has also conducted the Netherlands Radio Chamber Choir, Savannah Symphony Chorale, Hampshire Choral Society, Boston’s Masterworks Chorale, and other European and American choirs.

Phillips has composed numerous concert works as well as music for theatre, film and television, and has received composition awards from the American Music Center, Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, New England String Ensemble, St. Botolph Club Foundation and ASCAP. His most recent composition is War Music, a music theatre work based on the writings Christopher Logue. Commissioned by Aurea, War Music premiered at the 2005 FirstWorksProv Festival in Rhode Island, was produced in 2006 at the Chicago Humanities Festival, and will be presented in New York by the New York Institute for the Humanities in April 2007. His chamber ensemble arrangement of Stravinsky’s opera Mavra will be published in 2007 by Boosey & Hawkes.

As a pianist, Phillips has performed at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Recital Hall and on numerous chamber music series, including the Piccolo Spoleto Festival and Mohawk Trail Concerts. As a scholar, he is best known for his writings on the music of Igor Stravinsky and Anthony Burgess. His article in Music Analysis titled “The Enigma of Variations: A Study of Stravinsky’s Final Work for Orchestra” has been cited by musicologist Richard Taruskin as “the best exposition in print of Stravinsky’s serial methods.” Phillips wrote the entry on the British composer/novelist Anthony Burgess in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, is a featured commentator in the BBC television documentary The Burgess Variations, and is author of the forthcoming book A Clockwork Counterpoint: The Music and Literature of Anthony Burgess.

A strong believer in the importance of music in the lives of young people, Phillips has worked extensively with student musicians and audiences as Youth Concert Conductor of the Maryland Symphony from 1985-99. He has served as music director of several youth orchestras and is a frequent All-State orchestra guest conductor, including the 2007 Massachusetts All-State Orchestra. In collaboration with singer-songwriter Bill Harley, a 2007 Grammy Award winner, he has composed and arranged pieces for youth concerts that are performed by orchestras throughout the US. He also enjoys popular music and has led concerts featuring Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Charles, Tony Bennett, Dionne Warwick, Glen Campbell and other jazz and pop stars.

Phillips graduated cum laude in music from Columbia University. He holds advanced degrees in composition and conducting from Columbia and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and pursued additional studies at the Eastman School of Music, “Mozarteum” in Salzburg, Académie internationale d'été in Nice, Music Academy of the West, Aspen and Tanglewood. His teachers include Kyriena Siloti and Jeanne-Marie Darré in piano, Warren Benson and Samuel Adler in composition, and Kurt Masur, Seiji Ozawa, Leonard Slatkin and Leonard Bernstein in conducting.

At Brown, where he holds the rank of Senior Lecturer in Music, Phillips has taught score reading and conducting, composition, music theory and musicology. In addition to overseeing Brown’s orchestral activities, he administers the chamber music program and the Applied Music Program (private lessons) for string instruments.

Phillips serves on the Editorial Board of the International Anthony Burgess Foundation and the Board of Directors of the Conductors Guild. He is represented by Kenneth Wentworth at Jonathan Wentworth Associates, Ltd.