Daniel Phillips

Artistic Director

Daniel Phillips enjoys a versatile career as a chamber musician, solo artist, and teacher. A graduate of Juilliard, his major teachers were his father, Eugene Phillips, Ivan Galamian, Sally Thomas, Nathan Milstein, Sandor Vegh, and George Neikrug.  He is a founding member of the Orion String Quartet, which performs regularly at the Chamber Music Society. Available on recording are the complete quartets of Beethoven and Leon Kirchner. Since winning the 1976 Young Concert Artists Competition, he has performed as a soloist with many orchestras, including the Pittsburgh, Boston, Houston, Phoenix, San Antonio, and Yakima symphonies.  He appears regularly at the Spoleto USA Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, Chesapeake Music Festival, and Music from Angel Fire, has participated in the International Musicians Seminar in Cornwall, England since its inception, and recently returned to the Marlboro Music Festival.  He has served on the faculty of the Heifetz Institute and the St. Lawrence String Quartet Seminar at Stanford.  He was a member of the renowned Bach Aria Group, and has toured and recorded in a string quartet for Sony with Gidon Kremer, Kim Kashkashian, and Yo-Yo Ma.  A judge in the 2018 Seoul International Violin Competition and the 2019 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition, he is a professor at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College and on the faculties of the Mannes College of Music, Bard College Conservatory, and The Juilliard School. He lives with his wife, flutist Tara Helen O’Connor, on Manhattan’s upper west side.