Biography

Joseph Phibbs was born in London and studied at The Purcell School with the support of a Suffolk County Council scholarship, before continuing his education at King's College London (B.Mus, M.Mus) where he graduated with First Class Honours, and Cornell University NY (DMA). His teachers have included Param Vir, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, and Steven Stucky, and his works have received widespread performances in the UK and beyond, notably at the BBC Last Night of the Proms (Lumina, BBC Symphony Orchestra/Leonard Slatkin) and at the Cheltenham, Bath, and Aldeburgh festivals. Much of his output has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3. Bar Veloce, a percussion concerto for Dame Evelyn Glennie, recently received its first performance at the 2011 Cheltenham Festival, and future commissions include a 20 minute orchestral piece for Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia (2012), a harp concerto for David Watkins, a songcycle for Michael Chance and James Boyd (Aldeburgh 2012) and a concertante work for oboe, horn, harp and orchestra to mark the Purcell School’s 50th anniversary (2012, cond. Paul Daniel).

Notable orchestral and choral works are In Camera (BBC Symphony Orchestra/Slatkin), Tenebrae (St Albans Bach Choir/Andrew Lucas), Shruti (London Symphony Orchestra/Petrenko), The Spiralling Night (NYWE/Scott), Clarinet Concerto (Williamson/Curtis) and Shadows of Sleep, a cantata performed in 2010 at Snape Maltings and subsequently at Chelmsford cathedral (cond. Peter Nardone). His largest chamber work to date, The Canticle of the Rose, was premiered at Wigmore Hall by Lisa Milne and the Belcea Quartet in 2005, and shortlisted for a RPS Chamber Music Prize; a more recent performance by the Navarra Quartet and Helen-Jane Howells was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in November (BBC Broadcast). Other chamber repertoire includes FLEX (a joint RPS/BBC commission for the City of London Festival), Personnages for Nicholas Daniel, The Moon’s Funeral for James Bowman and Andrew Plant, and The Silence at the Song’s End (O’Brien/Solstice Quartet). A number of these works are to be featured on an NMC portrait disc, due for release in 2013. A set of three short songs, recently commissioned by tenor Ben Alden, will appear on a CD next year with pianist Andrew Plant.

He has been composer-in-residence at the Exon Singers Festival (2010) and most recently the 2011 Presteigne Festival, where much of his chamber music was performed, together with a new work for strings, Night Interludes. He has also scored for the theatre, including the Setagaya Theatre (Tokyo), Wolsey Theatre (Ipswich ) and The Globe (London), and an extract of an opera-in-progress, based on the novel Under the Volcano, was recently performed at Covent Garden’s Linbury Theatre.

Since 2003 Phibbs has combined his composing career with the promoting of Benjamin Britten's music, and was made a director of the Britten Estate in 2008. He is currently a visiting member of staff at the Purcell School and King’s College London.