When Hitchcock objected to the introduction of music during a sequence in Lifeboat (1943) he questioned the logic of having a string section appear in the middle of the ocean. “These people are lost in a lifeboat in the middle of nowhere”, he is reported to have complained. “Where, then, did the orchestra come from?” To which composer Hugo Friedhofer is said to have responded “The same place the camera came from, Mr. Hitchcock.”
Biography
Joseph Phibbs studied at The Purcell School, King's College London and Cornell University, and his teachers have included Param Vir, Sir Harrison Birtwistle and Steven Stucky. His works have been performed by leading ensembles in the UK and beyond, including the London Sinfonietta, Britten Sinfonia, BBC Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra (Washington), and much of his output has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3.
Lumina , commissioned for the 2003 Last Night of the Proms, was premiered in a televised broadcast by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin, and shortlisted in two categories of the 2004 British Academy Awards. It has since received further performances in Europe, including at the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam). In Camera , also written for the BBC SO and Slatkin, has been performed extensively across Europe and the US, and Rainland for choir and wind orchestra (written in collaboration with Stephen Plaice) received its sixth performance (US premiere) last November in Pittsburgh, following its European premiere at the 2007 WASBE Conference in Ireland. Phibbs largest chamber work to date, The Canticle of the Rose, was premiered at the Wigmore Hall in 2005 by Lisa Milne and the Belcea Quartet and shortlisted for the 2006 RPS Chamber Music Prize. Other recent chamber works include FLEX (a joint RPS/BBC commission, written for the City of London Festival in 2007), and Arc de Soleil for clarinet and piano (premiered by Sarah Williamson at the Wigmore Hall earlier this year).
Larger-scale works include Tenebrae for double choir and orchestra, The Village of Birds (written as part of the Britten Sinfonia's BBC Lunchtime Concert series), Personnages (for Nicholas Daniel), The Spiralling Night (commissioned by the National Youth Wind Ensemble of Great Britain, under Phillip Scott, and premiered at the 2007 WASBE Conference), and Shruti, premiered earlier this year by the London Symphony Orchestra under Vassily Petrenko.
He has also written for the theatre, scoring for a number of productions at the Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich, between 1996-97. Recent work includes incidental music for Hamlet (dir. Jonathan Kent in Tokyo/Sadlers Wells, 2003) and Troilus and Cressida (dir. Giles Block at The Globe, 2005).
Commissions for 2008 include a a songcycle for soprano and string quartet, a development commission for Covent Garden's 'Opera Genesis' scheme, a work for this year's Aldeburgh Festival, and a piece for the English Piano Trio.
Phibbs has combined his composing career with the editing and promoting of Benjamin Britten's music, and he is a director of the Britten Estate Ltd.
He is represented by Margaret Murphy Management.