Born in London, Leo Phillips studied the violin both in Europe, with David Takeno and Sandor Vegh, and in the USA with Dorothy DeLay and Shmuel Ashkenasi. He has appeared as violin soloist with many orchestras including the London Philharmonic, Manchester Camerata, L’Orchestre de Chambre de Genève and the National Symphony Orchestra of South Africa. He has also appeared as Leader/Concertmaster with over thirty others including The Chamber Orchestra of Europe, The Halle Orchestra, the BBC Orchestras, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Bergen Philharmonic, the Stavanger Philharmonic, the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra and the Hong Kong Philharmonic. A dedicated chamber musician Leo was both a founding member of the Vellinger String Quartet and Leader of the internationally renowned Nash Ensemble of London (1996-2000) with whom he toured extensively and made many recordings and broadcasts.
In 2003, Leo was invited to conduct the Thailand premiere of Benjamin Britten’s opera ‘The Turn of the Screw’ at the Thailand Cultural Centre, and since then he has appeared as conductor with The Bangkok Symphony Orchestra, The Thailand Philharmonic, The Siam Chamber Orchestra, The Galyani Vadhana Institute Orchestra and orchestral ensembles in Singapore, India and The Philippines.
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, Silpakorn University, Bangkok, Princeton University, USA, the Academy of Performing Arts in Hong Kong, Sangokan Concert Hall (Toyotashi) Japan, the Universities of Canterbury (Christchurch) and Otago (Dunedin) in New Zealand, and for the Chamber Music Society of Colombo in Sri Lanka. He has also been Artist in Residence at the Sydney Conservatorium, Australia, and the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore.
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.