Carnegie Hall

Peter Phillips has dedicated his career to the research and performance of Renaissance polyphony, and to the perfecting of choral sound. He founded The Tallis Scholars in 1973, with whom he has now appeared in more than 2,500 concerts worldwide and made more than 60 recordings in association with Gimell Records. As a result of this commitment, Mr. Phillips and The Tallis Scholars have done more than any other group to establish the sacred vocal music of the Renaissance as one of the great repertoires of Western classical music.

Mr. Phillips also conducts other specialist ensembles. He is currently working with the BBC Singers (London), Netherlands Chamber Choir (Utrecht), Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir (Tallinn), Danish Radio Choir (Copenhagen), and El Leon de Oro (Oviedo). He is Patron of the Chapel Choir of Merton College, Oxford.

In addition to conducting, Mr. Phillips is well known as a writer. For 33 years, he contributed a regular music column to The Spectator. In 1995, he became the publisher of The Musical Times, the oldest continuously published music journal in the world. His first book, English Sacred Music 1549–1649, was published by Gimell in 1991, while his second, What We Really Do, appeared in 2013. During 2018, BBC Radio 3 broadcast his view of Renaissance polyphony, in a series of six hour-long programs entitled The Glory of Polyphony.

In 2005, Mr. Phillips was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture. In 2008, he helped to found the chapel choir of Merton College Oxford, where he is a Bodley Fellow; and in 2021 he was elected an Honorary Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford.

The Tallis Scholars was founded in 1973 by director Peter Phillips. Through its recordings and concert performances, it has established itself as the leading exponents of Renaissance sacred music around the world. Mr. Phillips has worked with the ensemble to create—through good tuning and blend—the purity and clarity of sound that he feels best serves the Renaissance repertoire, allowing every detail of the musical lines to be heard. It is the resulting beauty of sound for which The Tallis Scholars have become so widely renowned.

The Tallis Scholars performs in both sacred and secular venues, giving approximately 80 concerts each year. In 2013, the group celebrated its 40th anniversary with a world tour, performing 99 events at 80 venues in 16 countries. In 2020, Gimell Records celebrated 40 years of recording the group by releasing a remastered version of the 1980 recording of Allegri’s “Miserere.” The desire to hear the group is as strong as ever as it celebrates its 50th birthday. It has now performed well over 2,500 concerts.

Highlights of the 2023–2024 season include performances in Japan, the US, France, Germany, Italy, and Finland; a number of appearances in London; and its usual touring schedule in Europe and the UK. In a monumental project to mark Josquin des Prez’s 500th anniversary, The Tallis Scholars sang all 18 of the composer’s masses over the course of four days at Berlin’s Pierre Boulez Saal in 2022, only to repeat this feat in Utrecht in 2023.

Recordings by The Tallis Scholars have won many awards. In 1987, its recording of Josquin’s Missa La sol fa re mi and Missa Pange lingua received Gramophone’s Record of the Year—the first recording of early music ever to win this coveted award. In 1989, French magazine Diapason gave two of its Diapason d’Or de l’Année for the recordings of a mass and motets by Lassus and Josquin’s two masses based on the chanson “L’Homme armé.” Its recording of Palestrina’s Missa Assumpta est Maria and Missa Sicut lilium was awarded Gramophone’s Early Music Award in 1991; it received the 1994 Early Music Award for the recording of music by Cipriano de Rore; and the same distinction came again in 2005 for the album of music by John Browne. The Tallis Scholars was nominated for Grammy Awards in 2001, 2009, and 2010. In November 2012, the recording of Josquin’s Missa De beata virgine and Missa Ave maris stella received a Diapason d’Or de l’Année and in the group’s 40th anniversary year, they were welcomed into the Gramophone Hall of Fame by public vote. In a departure for the group in 2015, The Tallis Scholars released a recording of music by Arvo Pärt called Tintinnabuli, which received great praise.