Simon Crawford-Phillips has established an extraordinarily varied career as soloist, chamber musician and most recently as a conductor making his debut with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2013. In August 2016 he conducted the première of Britta Byström’s Violin Concerto at the Baltic Sea Festival with Musica Vitae and Malin Broman and two weeks later was invited by Västerås Sinfonietta to open their season as conductor and soloist. As a result he was
appointed artistic adviser and chief conductor of Västeras Sinfonetta from 2017. Recent conducting engagements have included Dala Sinfonietta, the Nash Ensemble and English Chamber Orchestra as well as assisting Daniel Harding at the Verbier festival. Future debuts include the Nordic Chamber Orchestra, Aalborg Symphony Orchestra and Het Gelders Orkest.
Recent performances as a pianist have included a series of concerts at Wigmore Hall together with the Nash Ensemble, tours of Europe and Asia together with the Colin Currie Group and live broadcasts for the BBC from Edinburgh, Cardiff and London (Wigmore Hall and LSO St.Lukes). Future plans this season include performances at Malmö, Resonances, Santa Fe, Savannah, Trondheim and Verbier festivals. He works regularly with artists such as Colin Currie, Daniel Hope, Pekka Kuusisto, Anthony Marwood, Truls Mørk, Anne Sofie von Otter, Lawrence Power, Michael Schade, Torleif Thedéen, the Nash Ensemble and the Danish and Elias string quartets. He has recently given world premieres of music by Britta Byström, Steve Reich and Mark-Anthony Turnage as well as working alongside composers Sofia Gubaidulina, Simon Holt, Colin Matthews and Huw Watkins.
Simon Crawford-Phillips is a founding member of the internationally acclaimed Kungsbacka Piano Trio; in 2016/17 they toured Sweden and England culminating in a live BBC broadcast from Wigmore Hall and 2018 they will record all the Schumann piano trios for BIS.
In 2014 his piano duo together with Philip Moore, also a long-standing partnership, premiered Steve Reich’s Quartet for two pianos and two vibraphones at the Southbank, Carnegie Hall NY (listed as one of “The Ten Best Classical Performances of 2014′′ by New York Magazine), Kölner Philharmonie and Cité de la Musique Paris.
Simon also co-founded the ’Stockholm Syndrome Ensemble’, a group that aims to redefine the concert experience and is made up of some of Europe’s most exciting chamber musicians. The ensemble has its own series at Konserthuset in Stockholm and was recently the focus of a TV documentary for SVT.
In addition to radio and television broadcasts in Europe, Australia and Japan he has also recorded for the BIS, Channel Classics, Deux-Elles, Hyperion, Harmonia Mundi, LSO Live, Naxos, Nonesuch and Signum CD labels. Further recordings are planned for BIS.
As well as performing Simon is heavily involved in curating concerts and designing programmes. He is the artistic director of the Change Music Festival in Norra Halland in Sweden and the co- artistic director of the Wye Valley Chamber Music Festival. He has also presented concerts for Sweden’s classical music radio station P2.
In June 2010, Simon was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music. Previously he has held teaching positions at the Royal Academy of Music and Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and currently teaches at the Gothenburg Academy of Music and Drama. Recent guest teaching has included the Schymberg masterclasses in Sweden together with Anne Sofie von Otter and chamber music at Indiana University in Bloomington and University of Colorado in Bloomington.
www.simoncrawford-phillips.com