News
Philip's latest CD release, Beat Generation Ballads is out now on Huddersfield Contemporary Records. Michael Finnissy's Beat Generation Ballads, composed for Philip and premiered by him at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 2014, won the award for Best Solo/Duo work at the British Composer Awards 2015 and is paired on the CD with Finnissy's First Political Agenda
Andrew Clements, writing in The Guardian describes the "thoughtful and superbly played" disc as "a superb tribute" to Finnissy's piano music.
Over 2016-2017, Philip is working with Quatuor Bozzini in a programme including new piano quintets by Mary Bellamy and Bryn Harrison. See here for details about this exciting project.
Philip gave his Professorial Lecture Fingers, Fragility and Freedom: negotiating limits in Christian Wolff's music, in January 2016, St.Paul's Hall, University of Huddersfield.
Future CD releases include solo and ensemble music by Martin Arnold and Linda Smith on another timbre
Recent CD releases featuring Philip featured in 2015 'round-ups', including three CDs in The Wire's 'Modern Composition' list (Wolff Pianist: Pieces; Maciunas Musical Scoring Systems; Saunders assigned #15); and with Jürg Frey's Grizzana appearing in The Wire top 50 releases of 2015. Pianist: Pieces also featured in the end of year experimental playlist in The Guardian
Recent Concerts
Fresh Yorkshire Aires is a project exploring graphic scores reflecting aspects of Yorkshire. Philip joined pianist Matthew Bourne in two concerts realising scores by Katie English, Jex Riley French, Nigel Morgan and Jacob Thompson-Bell.
Philip performed Linda Smith's Piano Quintet with Quatuor Bozzini at the University of Huddersfield, Thursday February 11th 2016
Apartment House continued their 20th Birthday season with a concert at the Wigmore Hall, Saturday 27th February 2016, with a programme including new works by Egidije Medekšaite, Luiz Henrique Yudo, Leo Chadburn, and Martin Arnold
Decontamination 6 at the Royal Northern College of Music, March 8th, 2016, included Philip performing music by Tom Johnson.
Philip performed the music of Jürg Frey in two concerts at the 2015 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. In a solo concert he performed Pianist Alone (2) and Extended Circular Music No.9, the latter being the world premiere performance: 'Thomas's sure touch lent these strange works - at once spacey and harsh, staggering from progressions just short of melodic resolution to hammered adjacent chords - a compulsive air.' (The Wire). He also performed with Ensemble Grizzana with the composer himself on clarinet.
Recent CD releases
Michael Finnissy Beat Generation Ballads, featuring two major works for solo piano by leading British composer, Michael Finnissy.
Antanas Rekašius Fonogrammatika
Ensemble and solo piano music by this idiosyncratic twentieth-century Lithuanian composer, featuring Apartment house and Philip Thomas.
New Jürg Frey recordings:
Jürg Frey Circles and Landscapes, featuring six recent works by Frey, including world premiere recordings.
Jürg Frey Grizzana and other pieces 2009-2014, a double-CD set of recent ensemble pieces by the Swiss composer, featuring Philip with Jürg Frey, Ryoko Akama, Mira Benjamin, Richard Craig, Emma Richards and Seth Woods.
Other releases:
Joseph Kurdirka Beauty and Industry, a collection of Kudirka's scores, many of them text and graphic-based, featuring Apartment House.
Joseph Kudirka uses simple terms to say significant things...The scores leave much to interpretation. There are two or three versions of several pieces on this disc, each one an insight into the astutely calibrated textures made by Apartment House. (Kate Molleson, The Guardian)
James Saunders assigned #15, a recent return to the [unassigned] project from some years ago.
Other News
Philip, with Professor Martin Iddon (University of Leeds), has been awarded a major Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)grant. The grant supports a 3-year project investigating John Cage's Concert for piano and orchestra and includes support for two research assistants and significant research time leading to the publication of a monograph, recordings, a conference and an interactive web-site. The project has now started - find out more here
Philip was conferred as Professor of Performance at the University of Huddersfield, in August 2015.
***BLOG***
I have taken the plunge and started an occasional blog. You can read why here.
Initial posts include discussions of performance issues concerning the music of Bryn Harrison, Tim Parkinson and Morton Feldman. You can navigate back to the main website via the blog menu.
An extensive interview with Philip about his new Christian Wolff CD release can be found at Sound American
