Composer & cellist Barry Phillips has been performing folk, new, classical and Indian classical/crossover music for many years. He received a Masters of Music degree in composition from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and from 1996 to 2011 had been a student and a compositional assistant to Ravi Shankar.Barry's composition "Eight Ragas" for baroque ensemble and tabla, a 40 minute piece based on the chronological cycle of specific raga performance times was premiered with LuxMusica at the Santa Cruz Baroque Festival 2010 and released by East Meets West Music (The Shankar label).
As a cellist, Barry has toured worldwide with Ravi Shankar's daughter's group - The AnoushkaShankar Project. Venues have included the Hollywood Bowl, The Royal Albert Hall-London, The Music Academy-Budapest, Sydney Opera House, Bangalore Palace Grounds, London's LSO St. Lukes, CRR Concert Hall-Istanbul, as well as the Royal Concert Hall-Glasgow as soloist (along with four top fiddlers) with the Scottish National Orchestra.
Barry has arranged and produced many recordings of Northern European folk music including over a dozen on the Gourd Music label exploring American, Celtic folk tunes and the fine line that they walk with baroque and folk styles. He arranged and played cello on Martin Simpson's cd "Bramble Briar" which was BBC Radio 2 Album of the Year for 2002. Barry's cd, "Tråd." is a collection of Scandinavian tunes arranged for cello, nyckelharpa (Olov Johansson) and fiddle. Many of Barry's recordings can be heard in various Ken Burns documentaries.
Since 1996 Barry has assisted Ravi Shankar in several compositions, including music for MstislavRostropovich, Joshua Bell and the “Concert for George”, a George Harrison celebration at the Albert Hall, where he also performed on cello for both the Indian orchestra and the rock/pop sets.
In 2013 Barry won a Grammy as producer/engineer of Ravi Shankar's cd "The Living Room Sessions Part 1.
