Lewis Center Fellows
Joseph C. Phillips Jr.
Photo by Mark Elzey
About
The music of composer Joseph C. Phillips Jr. has been performed by the San Francisco Symphony, pianist Simone Dinnerstein, and at the Steve Reich Festival in The Hague, Netherlands, with compositions commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), the Ecstatic Music Festival, Maryland Opera Studio, the Crossing choir, and pianist Lara Downes. He has been featured in The New York Times, NPR Weekend Edition, BBC Music Magazine, Gramophone, and WNYC’s New Sounds. He conducts his large orchestra, Numinous, which has released four critically well-received recordings of his music: The Music of Joseph C. Phillips Jr. (2003), Vipassana (2009), Changing Same (2015), and the latest The Grey Land (2020), a mono-opera that is “rich with allusions to tragedy, hope, and resistance” and a “...stirring meditation on racial injustice...” (The New Yorker). During his fellowship year, he will begin to develop three of the six operas in his forthcoming 1619 opera cycle.
News & Links
NPR Weekend Edition Sunday feature on Changing Same | August 2015
In the Wake of Ferguson, a Style-Blurring Album | New York Times, November 2020
The 25 Best Classical Music Tracks of 2020 | New York Times, December 2020
WNYC New Sounds Top 10 of 2020 | New Sounds, January 2021
“The Grey Land: Joseph C. Phillips Jr. Captures the Essence of Modern Black America” | I Care if You Listen / American Composers Forum, January 2021
”Editor’s Picks: 2020 Contemporary Classical Albums” | I Care if You Listen / American Composers Forum, December 2020
Review in Gramophone: The Grey Land |
Review in The Wire magazine: The Grey Land
Listen to Numinous albums on Bandcamp
Joseph C. Phillips Jr.’s ensemble Numinous performs at Roulette, in Brooklyn, NYC, on Sept. 17, 2023, at 8 PM.