Philip Swanton
Resume
Philip Swanton grew up in Sydney and trained under David Rumsey at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music before moving overseas to complete specialist postgraduate organ studies in Basel, Switzerland.
He subsequently spent the best part of two decades pursuing an immensely successful career as a performer, recording artist and teacher, giving numerous recitals, workshops and masterclasses in major venues across Europe and as far afield as Mexico. A series of solo recordings for leading European radio networks and recording labels cemented his reputation as one of the leading recitalists of his generation.
Returning to Australia with his family in 1992, Philip was immediately appointed to the Sydney Conservatorium of Music faculty, where he has taught continuously now for the last 28 years. Under his direction, the organ department at ‘the Con’ has become the leading centre of organ education in the country. This excellence in teaching led to the receipt in 2012 of an exceptionally generous $1m endowment for organ studies (“The Richard and Doreen Wilson Organ Scholarship Fund”) – one of the largest single donations ever received by the Conservatorium – which provides a good number of scholarships for both tertiary degree and Rising Stars students.
Philip has an enviable record of successes in the annual Sydney Organ Competition, with students winning first prize in one or more sections every year for the last 10 years. Two of his Conservatorium students have been honored with the award of the University Medal on graduation, while a number of former students are now working in leading local and overseas centres of church music including Hereford, Truro and Westminster cathedrals, St Alban’s Abbey (UK) and L’Oratoire du Louvre (Paris). Two former students have gone on to become Organ Scholar at Westminster Abbey. In 2019 he gained the AMEB (NSW) award for “Most outstanding private teacher (Keyboard) at Diploma level”.
Alongside his work at the Con, Philip was on the music staff of Sydney Grammar School for 23 years (teaching piano, harpsichord & organ) and was the Senior (and founding) Teacher with the ACT Organ School (Canberra) from 2003-2017. He is also an accomplished harpsichordist and fortepianist. In a series of nine recitals in Sydney (1998-2000) he became the first Australian ever to publicly perform the complete keyboard sonatas of Joseph Haydn on harpsichord and fortepiano.