Philip Mayers is an Australian musician of remarkable versatility, enjoying an enviable reputation as a sought-after chamber music partner, accompanist, vocal coach, and pianist, the latter especially in the field of New Music, where he has been involved in the premières of more than one hundred new works. His concert performances have taken him to leading festivals such as Montreux, Aldeburgh, La Roque d’Anthéron, La Folle Journée (Nantes), Schleswig-Holstein, Kissinger Sommer, Hong Kong Arts Festival, New York’s White Light Festival and even to the April Spring Festival in Pyongyang, North Korea.
He graduated with Distinction from the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, having studied piano with Max Olding. After winning the piano prize of the national Young Performer of the Year competition and with the aid of an Australia Council grant, he left Australia for studies with Phillip Moll in Berlin and Zelma Bodzin in New York.
Now resident in Berlin, Philip performs regularly throughout Europe, North America and Asia, particularly as an associate artist with leading singers and chamber music partners from orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus, New York Philharmonic and Sydney Symphony. An increasing focus is on choral music, with numerous concerts and prize-winning CD recordings to his credit, most notably with RIAS-Kammerchor, Rundfunkchor Berlin, NDR Vokalensemble Hamburg, Cappella Amsterdam, Chorwerk Ruhr and Coro de la Casa Musica Porto. He has been Musical Director with, among others, the Kammeroper Schloss Rheinsberg, Schwetzinger Festspiele and the Berliner Kammeroper (including conducting the world première of Lera Auerbach’s a cappella opera “The Blind”). The latter was also responsible for the première of his chamber opera “Triest”, launching a composing career which most recently has resulted in projects as diverse as music for the silent film “La passion de Jeanne d’arc” and a musical for children (a commission by the Stadttheater Klagenfurt).
His work as a composer and arranger of popular music and cabaret is most in evidence in his long partnership with the singer Mary Carewe, with whom he has appeared at notable venues such as London’s Purcell Room, the Chatelet Theatre in Paris, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and the Butxaca Festival in Barcelona, and on tours of Great Britain, Australia and South America. Together they have recorded three CDs, the latest of which is “A Crush on You” – Gershwin songs in Philip’s arrangements for voice and string orchestra.
He is currently the Artistic Director of the Lisa Gasteen National Opera Program in Brisbane, Australia, where he has been a Guest Coach since 2013, and where he also made his stage debut as the Majordomo in the Program’s production of Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos, conducted by Simone Young.