Joseph Phibbs
Joseph Phibbs was born in London and studied at The Purcell School, King’s College London, and Cornell University (with Steven Stucky). His works have been premiered by conductors including Edward Gardner, Gianandrea Noseda, Sakari Oramo, Vassily Petrenko, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Leonard Slatkin, and are performed regularly at Wigmore Hall, Barbican, Royal Festival Hall and St John’s Smith Square. Several commissions for the BBC Symphony Orchestra have included Lumina (Last Night of the Proms) and Partita (2016), and for the Philharmonia Orchestra Rivers to the Sea (British Composers Award, 2013) and a Clarinet Concerto (2017, for Mark van de Wiel). His first opera, Juliana (to a libretto by Laurie Slade) was premiered at Cheltenham festival last year under George Vass.
He has written numerous chamber works. A recording of his String Quartet No.1 by the Piatti Quartet received acclaim last year in Gramophone Magazine, BBC Music Magazine and Bachtrack; and his String Quartet No.3, which premiered last October at Carnegie Hall, will be toured in Europe by Belcea Quartet in 2021. Additional works have been commissioned by the Britten Sinfonia, Chroma, Endymion, London Sinfonietta, Lontano, Krzysztof Chorzelski, Navarra Quartet, Michael Chance, Iestyn Davies and Noriko Ogawa. He is currently writing a Cello Sonata for Guy Johnson and Melvyn Tan, jointly commissioned by Wigmore Hall and 2021 Hatfield House Festival, and a set of piano pieces for Tom Kimura, to be premiered in Vienna.
Phibbs’s choral works have been taken up by conductors such as Rupert Gough, Peter Nardone, Matthew Owens, Adrian Partington, Ronald Corp and Andrew Lucas. He has also previously collaborated with Harry Christophers and The Sixteen to produce Nesciens Mater, released last year on their CORO label and broadcast on both Classic FM and BBC Radio 3; and has worked with the Fairhaven Singers and Ralph Woodward when writing Lullay, lullay thou lytl child, as part of their 2018 Christmas tour.
His latest 2020 releases include Three Tudor Songs, Romanza and Cantus, After Bach that can be streamed worldwide and on our website.
