After a concert to celebrate the auspicious occasion of Her Majesty Queen Sirikit's 72nd birthday, Her Majesty graciously bestows flowers upon Leo Phillips, conductor and violinist.

recent work: 2008 — 2007 — 2006 — 2005 — 2004

In April Leo was invited to conduct and perform as soloist in the inaugural concerts of Thailand's first dedicated chamber orchestra. Founded by Richard Harvey and The Royal Overseas League, The Siam Chamber Orchestra performed an all-Mozart programme featuring the Sinfonia Concertante (Leo playing solo violin along with Shanghai Conservatory professor Nian Liu playing viola), the Clarinet Concerto with Richard Harvey as soloist, and Symphony No.41 'Jupiter'. The concerts, at the Grand Ballroom of the Nai Lert Park Hotel in Bangkok, and at The Globe Theatre, Regent's School, Pattaya were well attended and rapturously received. Plans are already afoot for more concerts both in Bangkok and around the country later in the year.

2008 has also seen Leo returning to Australia for a week as Artist-in-Residence at The Sydney Conservatorium. He gave performance classes and private lessons, and coached the orchestra and several chamber music ensembles. It was a well-received and highly productive week that should lead to further future collaboration.

The highlight of the 2006/7 season was the formation of 'The Campus Camerata', a versatile orchestral force that aims to combine, under Leo's artistic direction, the best of students from Thai and International Schools and Universities with their professional teachers who themselves constitute the top instrumental musicians in Bangkok.

In November 2006, nineteen students from seven different Bangkok educational institutions collaborated in a well-attended and highly acclaimed performance of all four Bach violin concerti (A minor, E major, oboe/violin and two violins) directed by Leo from the violin, and featuring Bangkok's premiere oboist, Silapakorn Professor Damrih Banawitayakit, and Shrewsbury School Music Scholar Shunsuke Takemura. The concert was held at The Professor Sangvian Indaravijaya Auditorium at The Stock Exchange of Thailand, and was generously sponsored by Oleochem (Thailand) Ltd., Shrewsbury International and Bangkok Patana Schools, and produced by The Bangkok Music Society and Settrade.

The ensemble's next performance took place in March 2007 at the Khunying Sumanee Memorial Hall at Shrewsbury International School.

Twenty-two students played alongside seventeen professional instrumentalists as Leo conducted the full combined orchestra in performances of Mozart's Symphony No. 38 in D ('Prague'), and Haydn's London Symphony No. 102 in B flat. The orchestra leader for the occasion was one of Bangkok's finest violinists, the Associate Dean of Silapakorn University, Ajarn Tasana Navagajara.

As the recently appointed Artist-in-Residence at Singapore’s Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Leo conducted the Academy’s Orchestra in a concert performance at the Lee Foundation Theatre on October 28th.

November saw Leo's debut with The Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra in a performance that one reviewer described as: "truly astonishing....inspired by the commanding presence of a conductor who communicated the music so clearly, the players of the Thai Philharmonic managed to eschew comfortable mediocrity and bring a real excitement to a totally convincing performance."

Earlier in the year, Leo conducted the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra in a gala concert at the Thai Cultural Centre's main hall. The performance, sponsored by the Thailand Securities Depository to mark their tenth anniversary, featured Singaporean Soprano Nancy Yuen singing several concert arias, and pianists Artas and Indhuoun Balakauskas playing Mozart's concerto for two pianos in E flat, K. 365. The event, graciously attended by HRH Princess Galyani, was televised by UBC television in Thailand in October.

The month of June featured the first of two 2005 concerts sponsored by
B. Grimm and featuring Leo conducting The Bangkok Symphony Orchestra. This acclaimed performance of works by Sibelius, Beethoven and Haydn, was presented at the Khunying Sumanee Hall at Shrewsbury International School, by The Royal Thai Embassy, Tel Aviv, and The Embassy of Israel. The concert also featured the Israeli pianist and composer Gil Shohat in Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto.

The concert at Shrewsbury was again graced by the presence of Her Royal Highness Princess Galyani Vadhana, who also generously found time to preside over The Bangkok Piano Trio’s debut at the Thai Cultural Centre in May. This latter concert was also a great success and 150,000 Baht was raised that evening for The Fund for the Promotion of Classical Music under The Royal Patronage of HRH Princess Galyani Vadhana.

saw Leo making his debut conducting The Bangkok Symphony Orchestra in the Nestlé 'Perfect Harmony' concert series, and in the popular Lumphini Park performances. He also conducted The Siam Philharmonic in their December Gala Concert at Thailand's National Theatre.

Additionally Leo founded The Bangkok Wind Ensemble and The Bangkok Piano Trio. Both groups had exciting and well-attended debuts in Bangkok..

December 2004 saw Leo performing once more for Her Majesty Queen Sirikit in the Ballroom of Bangkok's Dusit Thani Hotel.

Having been invited to conduct several concerts and a production of Benjamin Britten's opera 'The Turn of the Screw' Leo found himself re-locating to Bangkok in April 2003....

The Turn of the Screw

Pictures of the production

Opera East Article