PHILLIP HARRIS
As a soloist, Phillip has performed the works of Jacqueline Hairston in Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall and the Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center. He has appeared in concert with the San Francisco Symphony and the San Francisco Boys Chorus in the annual Deck the Halls concert, the Oakland Symphony and the Oakland Symphony Chorus in Let Us Break Bread Together, the Aspen Symphonic Wind Orchestra as The Narrator in Liberty for All, and Boy 2 Trio in Trouble in Tahiti with the Reno Chamber Orchestra.
For two seasons, he sang in the extra chorus with the San Francisco Opera in Gotterdämmerung and Billy Budd. He performed as Sem in Noye's Fludde with Opera Las Vegas, Marius in Les Misérables with the San Mateo Masterworks Chorale and Orchestra, Cinderella's Prince in Into the Woods and King Arthur in Camelot- both with Mountain Play, and Mr. Dashwood in Little Women with Island City Opera. Phillip has sung Schaunard in La Bohème, Cascada in The Merry Widow with Pocket Opera and the role of Papageno in an animated version of The Magic Flute with Pocket Opera that features an all-black cast and creative team that won Opera America's 2024 Digital Excellence Award and Honorable Mention at the Los Angeles Animation Festival.
Having sung over twenty roles in opera, operetta, and musical theater, notable roles are Don Giovanni (Don Giovanni), Dr. Falke (Die Fledermaus), Marcello (La Bohème), The Learned Judge (Trial by Jury), The Pirate King (The Pirates of Penzance), and Fauteuil/Arbe (L'enfant el les Sortèliges). A winner of the Encouragement Award from the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, he also participated in training programs that include the Aspen Music Festival, Hawaii Performing Arts Festival and Opera in the Ozarks.
Oratorio works include the baritone solo in Duruflé's Requiem, the bass solos in Beethoven's Choral Fantasy and Messiah, and has given recitals at University of California, Irvine, Alabama State University, and Los Medanos College. His performance of Jacqueline Hairston's Songs of Concealment with Pocket Opera's PocketWatch was nominated by San Francisco Classical Voice Audience Choice Awards for Best Vocal Solo/Recital Performance. As a recitalist, he has performed Deon Nielson Price's song cycle, Gallery at the Presidio Chapel in San Francisco and gave an alumni recital at the University of California Irvine, and other recitals at Los Medanos College, Alabama State University, and Downs Memorial United Methodist Church. Vice President of the newly formed Board of the African-American Art Song Alliance Conference, he is a frequent performer of those conferences having sung new works by Dr. H. Leslie Adams, Dr. Maria Thompson Corley, and Dr. Marques L.A. Garrett.
Recordings include Phillip Harris in Recital with Damien Sneed, that features art songs, arias, spirituals, gospel, and musical theater repertoire, an EP of original music, In My Philz, produced by Marcus McCauley, and a feature on "Gallery" from Deon Nielson Prices' Concert from Presidio Chapel. This summer, he will return to Carnegie Hall as a chorister in Elaine Hagenberg's Illuminare with Mid America Productions.