Hailing from Brisbane, Dr Philip Eames studied piano with Dr Max Olding and Stephen Savage at the Queensland Conservatorium where he was a category finalist in the ABC Young Performers Awards. Philip then underwent further study on scholarship at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, before completing his doctorate in 2017 at the Sydney Conservatorium on the choral music of Percy Grainger. Currently, Philip is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Sydney Conservatorium working as part of the Spencer-Bennett NeuroMusic Collaborative, and the Classical Convenor and lecturer at the Australian Institute of Music.
Philip maintains a diverse professional career as a composer, pianist, academic and conductor. He was appointed principal conductor of the Macquarie Singers in 2023, and most recently conducted Operantics 2023 season of Menotti’s chamber opera The Medium. A pianist with a penchant for modernist and Australian repertoire, Philip was a category finalist in the ABC Young Performers Awards, performing Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No.2 “The Age of Anxiety” as soloist with the Western Australia Symphony Orchestra.
Philip’s music has frequently been commissioned and performed throughout Australia by artists including the Australian Voices, Queensland Ballet and the Australian National Piano Award. His choral cycle "This Great Unrain" was selected as the winner of the 2020 Willgoss Choral Composition Prize, and he is also the winner of the Tagore and ASKM Composition Competitions. In 2019 he collaborated with the Black Square Quartet, Waangenga Blanco and the Quandamooka Yoolooburrabee Aboriginal Corporation to create a large-scale string quartet based on the stories of Oodgeroo Noonuccal and accompanied by dance. This work "Minjeribah Dreaming" received a string of acclaimed performances during the 2019 Quandamooka Festival. Philip was also a featured composer in New Music New York, Making Waves, the Music Box Project and the Flinders Quartet 2018 Composer Development Program.