Suzuki cello. Bachelor of Music degree and a Master of Music degree in Cello Performance from Indiana and Rice Universities where her teachers include Janos Starker, Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi, Norman Fischer and Desmond Hoebig. She is an orchestral and chamber musician, is currently Assistant Principal Cello with The Virginia Symphony Orchestra where she has been a member since 1999. She also performs with The Philadelphia Orchestra, The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, The North Carolina Symphony and The Breckenridge Music Festival Orchestra. Previously she was Principal Cellist of The Greensboro Symphony where she made her solo debut performing Tchaikovsky’s “Rococo Variations”. Earlier in her career she soloed with the Charlotte Symphony and the Charlotte Repertory Orchestra and the latter with which she performed Haydn’s “Cello Concerto in D Major”. In May of 2010, Ms. Gilmore Phillips was broadcast live on NPR for a performance of Schubert’s Guitar Quartet with JoAnn Falletta and VSO colleagues on a Virginia Arts Festival Series. She has been a featured solo and chamber artist with the Virginia Arts Festival, The Virginia Symphony, and Norfolk Chamber Consort as well as college series at Old Dominion University and Virginia Wesleyan College. Her cello career has taken her abroad to The Banff Centre for the Arts in Alberta, Canada, England, The Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy and China. Within the United States, she has both taught and performed with numerous music festivals including the Breckenridge Music Festival Orchestra, The Brevard Music Center, Garth Newel Chamber Music Center, The National Repertory Orchestra, The National Orchestral Institute, and the North Carolina School of the Arts’ International Music Program where she was Cello Soloist with the orchestra throughout Europe. In Canada, she and pianist/composer Gabriela Frank collaborated on Frank’s world premiere of “Rios Profundos” which was released on Capstone Records label titled, “It Won’t Be The Same River” with the Mallarmé Chamber Players of Durham, North Carolina. In 2006, her Breckenridge Music Festival recorded Piazzolla’s “Four Seasons”. She has recorded most recently for the Virginia Arts Festival, Ricky Ian Gordon’s “Rappahannock County”.
As a chamber musician, she is founder of Ambrosia Quartet, a professional ensemble of players from the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, whose debut in 2005 on the Feldman Chamber Music Society Series entranced a full house of patrons with works by Shostakovich, Brahms and Beethoven. The group came together in the fall of 2002 and has been featured on the Familiar Faces Series at Virginia Wesleyan College, Music in Your Life Series at the Williamsburg Regional Library and Wonderful Wednesdays Summer Music Series sponsored by the Jewish Museum and Cultural Center in Portsmouth, VA. Additionally, Ambrosia Quartet has performed for the Virginia Arts Festival, the Virginia Symphony, as well as The Chrysler Museum of Art. Ambrosia Quartet has performed throughout Hampton Roads, in North Carolina, and as far away as China in 2004. More recently Ambrosia is exploring both quartet and trio repertoire in pursuits of future recordings.
As a teacher, she “carries the torch” as instructed by her teacher, Janos Starker.
She has taught cello through Rice University in Texas, Virginia Wesleyan College, The Academy of Music, The Governor’s School for the Arts and The Brevard Music Center (NC). She has completed Suzuki training through Cello Book 5 with SAA mentors, Tanya Carey, Grace Fields and Elizabeth Cantrell through the Suzuki Association of the Americas. She recognizes the importance of music in the development of young children, including her own children.