Former PSO violinist shared his gift with students
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Thirty years after he last took a lesson with Eugene Phillips, Chris Franklin still vividly remembers the smell of Mr. Phillips’ thirdfloor studio/teaching/work space.
“It smelled like a luthier,” said Mr. Franklin, who went on to study violin and is now a freelance operatic and symphonic conductor. “It always smelled like wood and varnish, and had violins hanging everywhere.”
That was appropriate. Mr. Phillips was not only a world-class violinist himself, playing with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra for most of 40 years, and the teacher of many the best up-and-coming violinists the region for decades, he also the son of a Pittsburgh luthier whose violins and violas are still played around the world.
He also married a pianist, Natalie, and together they raised two violinists — Todd and Daniel — and a soprano singer in their daughter, Amy, all the while composing his own scores and performing in the the symphony, his own string quartet and other ensembles, and hosting afternoons at their Squirrel Hill home for musicians to come and play for the pure enjoyment of it all.
“Our house was like a conservatory,” said Daniel Phillips.
Mr. Franklin, who grew up next door to the Phillips, agreed: “That house over there, there was always music over there. Culture and music was just a part of the fabric of that house.”
Although Mr. Phillips retired from the symphony in 1987, he continued to perform — always using violins made by his father — and teach until recent years. He and his wife moved to Providence Point retirement community in Scott last year.
Mr. Phillips, 97, died at his home on Feb. 17 after battling diabetes and heart issues, said his wife.
Eugene Walter Phillips was born in Pittsburgh, the son of Polish immigrants, Rose and Benjamin Phillips. Benjamin Phillips’ last name had been Filipiak until it was changed when he emigrated to the United States in 1904. The couple raised three boys and two girls.
Eugene was introduced to the violin at 7 by his father, who also played, as had his siblings.
“Everyone in the family was exposed to it,” said Mrs. Phillips. “But he was the only one who made a career out of it.”
After high school, he studied violin and composing at Carnegie Tech, where he met his future wife, who was studying piano. Though Mrs. Phillips went on to get multiple music degrees, later teaching piano privately and instructing at the University of Pittsburgh, Mr. Phillips never graduated and, instead, dropped out to begin his professional career.
During World War II his talent kept him off the front lines and put him in the symphony that toured to sell war bonds.
Following the war, his career took off. He earned a seat with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in 1949 in what was, then, a part-time job.
“Back then, you had to do other stuff besides the symphony to pay the bills,” Mrs. Phillips said.
That was fine for Mr. Phillips, who preferred chamber quartets anyway, and found willing audiences to perform for. He also began to teach violin privately, and kept 20 to 25 students each year for most of the rest of his life, with a reputation for getting the most out of his students.
His teaching style was a mix of encouragement, firmness and an overarching lesson that music was important, but “you needed to be a well-rounded person,” Mr. Franklin said.
“He would see me outside kicking the soccer ball, and he would encourage me in that, too,” said Mr. Franklin, who ended up studying music while also playing soccer in college.
Mr. Phillips also continued to compose, at one point impressing the PSO’s then conductor, Andre Previn, enough with one of his pieces that the PSO performed it.
In addition to playing, composing and teaching, Mr. Phillips was a wood sculptor, jewelry maker, and sketch and paint artist — “and one hell of a good cook,” Mrs. Phillips said.
His famously uplifting personality continued till the end of his life. Not long before he died, when he knew he was seriously ill, his wife saw him sketching one day and he turned to her and handed her a sketch he had made of himself.
“When I die, use this with the obituary,” he said with a smile.
Because of his deteriorating condition, his children and many of his grandchildren were in town when he died.
Daniel Phillips said with his father in hospice on the day he died, he played his father a lot of Bach on his violin as a send-off.
“As deaths go,” Daniel said, “it was as great as his life was.”
At a memorial that the family has arranged, several of Mr. Phillips’ family members — including his sons and daughter — will perform works he composed, as well as some of his favorite pieces by his favorite composers.
The memorial will be at 3 p.m. April 23, in the Chartiers Room at Providence Point, 500 Providence Point Boulevard in Scott. The public is welcome to attend.