French cellist Xavier Phillips started playing cello at age six, and at 15, began taking lessons from Philippe Muller. He attended the Paris Conservatoire, graduating in 1989, and participated in many competitions, winning prizes at the Young Artists Competition in Belgrade, the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, and the Rostropovich Competition in Paris, which led Phillips to collaborate with Mstislav Rostropovich in performances of Prokofiev's Sinfonia Concertante in E minor with the National Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. Rostropovich also invited Phillips to perform Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Subsequently, Phillips appeared as a soloist with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, the Houston Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, and the Filarmonica della Scala, among other orchestras. In 2006, Phillips gave a performance of Henri Dutilleux's Tout un monde lointain... with the Orchestre de Paris, in the composer's presence. Phillips has also performed with the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, the Radio France Orchestre Philharmonique, the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Orquesta Sinfonica de Sevilla, and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. In addition to performing the concerto repertoire, Phillips is an active chamber musician, playing with Shlomo Mintz, Jean-Marc Phillips-Varjabédian, Régis Pasquier, David Grimal, Emmanuel Strosser, Romain Guyot, Vahan Mardirossian, Igor Tchetuev, and Vanessa Wagner. He has recorded for Valois, Harmonia Mundi, EMI, Warner Classics, and the Seattle Symphony labels.
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