PAUL PHILLIPS

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On July 31 and August 1, the Stanford Summer Symphony Orchestra and Stanford Summer Chorus under the direction of Paul Phillips performed Lobgesang (Hymn of Praise), Felix Mendelssohn's epic "symphony-cantata", in Bing Concert Hall. Considered one of Mendelssohn's greatest works, it is the first symphony after Beethoven's 9th to combine orchestra and chorus. The soloists are sopranos Esther Tonea and Jennie Yukyung Byun and tenor Chance Jonas-O'Toole. Esther is a former Adler Fellow at SF Opera and winner of the prestigious Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition. Chance Jonas-O'Toole, an alumnus of SF Opera's Merola Program, sang with Deutsche Oper Berlin for the past two seasons and is now back with SF Opera. Jennie Yukyung Byun is a prominent soprano soloist living the Bay Area.
 

During Paul's sabbatical from Stanford from January through June 2026, he became a proficient user of Dorico Music Notation Software and transferred his compositions to Dorico from Finale, the widely used music notation software that is being phased out. A number of these new, revised editions of his compositions will be used in the upcoming sessions in January 2027 with the Royal Scottish National Symphony for a new recording of Paul's orchestral music to be issued by Navona Records.

During 2026-27, Stanford Philharmonia will host two guest composers: Melody Eötvos for a performance of her Red Dirt | Silver Rain in November and Missy Mazzoli for a performance of her Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) in February. To celebrate the Beethoven Bicentenary 1827/2027, Paul will conduct Beethoven 1 with Stanford Philharmonia in November and Beethoven 9 with the Stanford Symphony Orchestra and Stanford Symphonic Chorus in March.  Other highlights of next season include Mahler 1, Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances, Milhaud's Stanford Serenade (dedicated to the SSO), California premieres of Wang Lu's Surge and Paul's Brass Knuckles, and music by Purcell, Sousa, Rachmaninoff, Ives, and many others.

Concerts in 2025-26 celebrated the centenaries of the Italian composer Luciano Berio (1925-2003) and Bela Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin Suite. Paul Phillips conducted Berio's Corale with violinist Alexander Goldberg along with Respighi's Ancient Airs and Dances, Suite 1, and Stravinsky's Pulcinella (complete) with Stanford Philharmonia on 8 November 2025 in Bing Concert Hall. The Stanford Symphony Orchestra concerts on 14 & 16 November 2025, also in Bing, presented Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin Suite, the California premiere of Quinn Mason's Serenade for Strings (co-commissioned by SSO), and works by Manuel de Falla and Joaquin Rodrigo.
 

A sold-out concert by the Stanford Summer Symphony on 26 July 2025 in Bing Concert Hall featured music by Rossini, Beethoven, Respighi, and Brahms, with SSO alumnus and Concerto Competition Winner Sean Mori '25 as soloist in Beethoven's two Romances for Violin and Orchestra. Shortly after the Summer Symphony concert, Paul spent two weeks in South Korea and China. As a guest of KTO (Korea Tourism Organization) and Classical Movements, Paul visited concert halls and met with eminent Korean musicians and musical administrators in Seoul, Busan, and Daegu. In China, Paul was an honored guest of the Cultural Affairs Ministry of Zhejiang Province, where he held meetings and attended formal banquets with representatives of the Hangzhou Philharmonic Orchestra, Ningbo Symphony Orchestra, Zhejiang Symphony Orchestra, Zhejiang Song and Dance Theatre, Wu Opera, Hangzhou Normal University School of Music, and Zhejiang Normal University College of Art. 

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Last season, the Stanford Symphony Orchestra celebrated the 150th anniversary of the birth of Maurice Ravel with performances of Daphnis et Chloé, Suites I and II, on 7 & 8 March 2025. The concert opened with Paul conducting the West Coast premiere of his orchestral song cycle Battle-Pieces, featuring bass-baritone Ashraf Sewailam as soloist. The concert concluded with Francis Poulenc's Stabat Mater, featuring soprano Mikayla Sager and the Stanford Symphonic Chorus.

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On 28 February 2025, the Mela Guitar Quartet, winner of the Guitar Foundation of America's International Ensemble Competition 2023, performed the US premiere of Anthony Burgess's Concerto Grosso for Guitar Quartet and Orchestra in A Minor with Paul conducting Stanford Philharmonia in a program that also included Concerto Grosso for String Orchestra with Piano Obbligato by Ernest Bloch and Symphony No. 3 in C Major, op. 52, by Jean Sibelius.

 

The Devil Prefers Mozart: On Music and Musicians, 1962-1993 is a 578-page volume of writings by Anthony Burgess published by Carcanet Press on 25 January 2024. Paul compiled and edited the book, which includes his notes and commentary on all 75  chapters. In June 2024, the Financial Times selected it as one of its three Best Summer Books in Classical music with this recommendation: "Burgess’s ambition to be a composer never came to fruition, but the author of A Clockwork Orange continued to write about music through his life. This compendium includes 75 essays and reviews on everything from Monteverdi to punk. By turns insightful, idiosyncratic and contentious, his writings are never dull." And in December 2024, Richard Bratby, music critic of The Spectator, selected it as his Book of the Year, writing: "The literary world seems rather to have cooled on Anthony Burgess the novelist; the musical world saved time by ignoring his music (he was a prolific composer) from the outset. The Devil Prefers Mozart: On Music and Musicians, 1962-1993 (Carcanet Press) suggests that his true vocation lay as intermediary between the two. Stylishly edited by Paul Phillips, this wonderfully bingeable volume collects Burgess’s essays on music, revealing him as the heir to his hero George Bernard Shaw. He’s prescient, too: a writer who died in 1993 has no business being quite so clear-eyed about the cultural woes of our own fragmented century. Gin and tonic for the music-loving mind."

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The premiere of Paul's composition Sweet Thunder for 12 Pianos took place in San Francisco on 9 & 10 February 2024 in a pair of sold-out performances in Grace Cathedral. Both concerts also included Benjamin Gribble's Fall and Fly, which premiered on 14 September 2022, conducted by Paul, at the Flower Piano Festival in the San Francisco Botanical Garden. Dean Mermell produced this documentary about that event.

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​​Videos of most SSO, SP, SSS, and SNE performances from 2017-2026 can be viewed at the Stanford Orchestras YouTube channel.

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