Leo Phillips, Principal Second Violin
“My years with the COE remain perhaps the most important musical experience of my life. I joined in 1986 and, at 21, was the youngest member of the orchestra. The thrill of working with such amazingly charismatic conductors and soloists, and alongside other young players of extraordinary virtuosity and musical depth, ensures that forty years on I can still vividly recall many of the individual performances we gave. As an orchestral musician I was tremendously inexperienced, having until then played only a limited amount of solo and string repertoire. The COE’s rehearsals and concerts often constituted my very first exposure to the core orchestral works of the Classical and Romantic periods, and learning these great masterpieces from within such a fantastic ensemble was an incredible, indelible privilege.”
Biography
Born in London, Leo Phillips studied the violin both in Europe, with David Takeno and Sandor Végh, and in the USA with Dorothy DeLay and Shmuel Ashkenasi. He has performed as violin soloist with many orchestras including The London Philharmonic, The Orchestre de Chambre de Genève and the National Symphony Orchestra of South Africa, and has appeared as concertmaster with orchestras throughout the world including The Chamber Orchestra of Europe, The Bergen Philharmonic, The Sichuan Symphony Orchestra and the Hong Kong Philharmonic. A dedicated chamber musician, Leo was Leader of the internationally regarded Nash Ensemble of London with whom he toured extensively and has made many critically acclaimed recordings and broadcasts. He is a regular participant at chamber music festivals worldwide including IMS Open Chamber Music, Prussia Cove, and Beare’s Premiere Music Festival, Hong Kong.
Much in demand as a violin teacher and chamber music coach, Leo has given lessons and conducted master classes at The Royal Academy of Music, The Guildhall School, Chetham’s School of Music, Princeton University, USA, the Academy of Performing Arts in Hong Kong, the Universities of Auckland, Canterbury (Christchurch) and Otago (Dunedin) in New Zealand, and at the Yehudi Menuhin School. He has also been Artist in Residence at the Sydney Conservatorium, Australia, and the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore. In 2024 he was appointed Visiting Scholar at Hong Kong Baptist University.
In 2018 Leo published an acclaimed booklet entitled ‘Scales and Arpeggios for the Violin: A Musical Approach’, and, in 2025, he followed this up with ‘Opus 2, Some thoughts on Playing the Violin’. He also published, in 2019, a new set of original verses commissioned by Pro Musica, Bangkok, to accompany Camille Saints-Saëns’ ‘The Carnival of the Animals’.
In addition to his musical career, Leo studied improvisational comedy in Chicago with Del Close and Charna Halpern, co-wrote a full-length comedy screenplay: ‘Vivaldi – The Movie’, and was commissioned to devise the six-part documentary series ‘Living Music’ for Channel 4 television (1991). Articles of his have been published in The Daily Telegraph, ‘Art’ magazine and ‘Autocar’, and his photographic portraits of Dame Iris Murdoch have been displayed in Britain’s National Portrait Gallery.
A keen contract bridge player, Leo is proud to have played in the UK at county level representing Oxfordshire.