s o l o
Simon studied and worked as a classical pianist for over 10 years before making the transition to composition and creative/improvisatory performance. Musically, he constructs an open sonic atmosphere that provides the audience with time to reflect upon and explore the sound. He has developed techniques of manipulating the overtones to the piano that allow him to focus towards more on sonic and spatial qualities of performance.
Simon is attracted to the tension between trying to recreate inorganic sound with the piano and the limitations of the instrument and his own physical mechanism.
His solo album Chair was released in 2013 on Room40 and received rave reviews internationally.
“Highlights? It seems slightly perverse to single anything out, so well balanced is the whole set, but the way the rolling, almost romantic opening to poul builds, with simple figures rising to the top around five minutes in, is so warm and detailed that you almost forget there aren’t hidden oscillators or organs buried in the guts of the piano”.
FLUID RADIO (UK)
“The album is a truly breathtaking and overwhelming series of solo piano pieces. Using only the natural sustain (read: no pedals) of the piano and Gruenwald Church in Berlin where this was recorded, Chair sounds almost impossible in the context of its minimalist approach to making massive sounds”.
Tome to the Weather Machine
(CHAIR was number three on Tome to the Weather Machine's top 20 album's of 2013)
s o l o o r g a n
In 2018 Simon made his debut as a solo organist, premiering a new work for the Internationale Orgelwoche Nürnberg. For this performance he played on the renowned St Lorenz Church in Nuremberg on a pipe organ where the pipes are spread around the church in three different positions, allowing Simon to utilise various spatial effect. In 2019 he will record a new album for solo organ.
In 2022, Phillips was commissioned to compose and perform BIDE - a work for solo organ. It is constructed from long tones, chords and silences that through its harmonic arc and careful voicing reveal the essence of each pipe or register and how they interact with acoustic within which organ is housed. The lingering pace of the work is punctuated with moments of silence, at times brief and at others more sustained, and allows space for a more focused awareness of the other barely perceptible sounds in the church that go often unnoticed. The organ, so often associated with bombast and ceremony, softens to mingle gently with the more reflective atmosphere of the church.
BIDE was first performed at the Meakusma Festival (Belgium) in September 2022. Simon recorded a second version of BIDE in 2023 on Trondheim, Norway - which he is currently mixing.
(Bide (verb) 1. (intransitive) archaic or dialect - to continue in a certain place or state; stay 2. (intransitive) archaic or dialect to live; dwell 3. (transitive) archaic or dialect to tolerate; endure. Etymology - Old English bīdan; related to Old Norse bītha to wait, Gothic beidan, Old High German bītan)