Why I Chose Backun
"The difference in Backun is that each product has been designed with and from a player’s perspective. Each and every piece is then designed with state of the art machines and hand made quality - no other company can match this attention to detail."
About
Jessica Phillips was appointed Second Clarinet and E-Flat with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in 2001. She graduated cum laude from Barnard College, Columbia University with a degree in Political Science and Music and Manhattan School of Music, where she was a student of Ricardo Morales and David Weber.
As a member of the MET Orchestra, she has toured regularly throughout Asia and Europe. During the 2003-04 seasons at the MET, Ms. Phillips performed as Acting Principal with the Orchestra. In the 2011-12 season she will perform again as Acting Principal. She has worked under the batons of some of the world’s most esteemed conductors, including Sir Simon Rattle, Lorin Maazel, Valery Gergiev, Pierre Boulez, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Alan Gilbert, Fabio Luisi, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin,
She began her orchestral training as the youngest ever wind player accepted into the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, a group she performed with for eight years. She was also a featured artist on the PBS Documentary “A New World of Music” about the New England Conservatory’s Youth Philharmonic Orchestra Tour to South America in 1995.
Throughout her freelance career she has appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra and on their 2005 Tour to Asia, American Ballet Theater, Santa Fe Opera, American Symphony Orchestra, EOS Orchestra, DiCapo Opera, at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, the Bard Music Festival, the Music Festival of the Hamptons, and at the Aspen Music Festival Orchestra.
An active chamber musician, Ms. Phillips has performed numerous times in Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall with the MET Chamber Ensemble. She was also invited to perform at the inauguration of Zankel Hall with James Levine. She has performed with members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and members of the Philadelphia Orchestra, with the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, at the St. Bart’s Music Festival, the Kingston Chamber Music Festival, the San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival, as well as performances at Alice Tully Hall, Jordan Hall, Steinway Hall, Riverside Church, and Columbia University’s Miller Theater.
She has performed in recital and conducted master-classes at the Oklahoma Clarinet Symposium, the International Clarinet Association’s ClarFest in Japan and Vancouver Canada, the Lisbon International Clarinet Meeting, the International Woodwind Festival, Peabody Conservatory, and the Boston Conservatory. Ms. Phillips will perform again at the 2012 ClarFest in Nebraska.
She can be heard on many “Live from Lincoln Center” televised broadcasts and DVD recordings, as well as the Metropolitan Opera live Saturday Matinee and SiriusXM Radio broadcasts. She can also be heard on the Philadelphia Orchestra recordings under the Ondine Label of Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5, Bartok Concerto for Orchestra, and Mahler Symphonies No. 5 and No. 6, and the documentary “The Resurrection of Gustav Mahler” with Neemi Järvi.
Ms. Phillips is a Backun Artist and has worked closely with Morrie Backun on the design of mouthpieces, barrels and bells for E-Flat clarinet, as well as the new MET Model Clarinet mouthpiece. Ms. Phillips is also serves on the faculties at Rutgers University, the Mason Gross School for the Arts, Columbia University, and The Juilliard School specializing in E-Flat Clarinet.
Performs On
Photo Credit: Yuki Tei
