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The American music director, conductor, and cellist, Phillip Gaskil, studied Mathematics at Iowa State University (September 1962-December 1964). He transferred to Ohio State University in January 1, 1965 to change major to music, and graduated there in June 1967 with Bachelor of Music degree. He studied cello with David Levinson, Pasquale Ficarra, James Stroud, Gordon Epperson, and Boleslaw Zukowski, and conducting with Donald McGinnis (and every other conductor he has ever seen...).
Phillip Gaskil has been a member of, among others, the Columbus (Ohio) Symphony Orchestra; the U.S. Air Force Band and Orchestra, Washington, D.C. (principal cellist); the Northwest Chamber Orchestra, Seattle; Orchestra Seattle (co-founder with George Shangrow, principal cellist, and assistant conductor); the Lawyers’ Orchestra, New York (principal cellist); the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony, New York (principal cellist and assistant conductor); and the Doctors’ Orchestra, New York. He is the former music director and conductor of the Skid Road Theatre, Seattle. He was a co-founder of the Bozarks Trio, Seattle (with Tom Dziekonski, violin, and George Shangrow, piano), and the founder of the Gramercy String Quartet, New York (with Linda Chang Kim and Jeffrey Parry, violins, and Jane Ann Lockwood, viola).
As a cellist, Phillip Gaskil has performed P.I. Tchaikovsy's Rococo Variations, J. Haydn's D-major Cello Concerto, Johannes Brahms' Double Concerto, and A. Dvorak's Cello Concerto with orchestra. He has also performed in public on the bass viola da gamba, five-string cello, four-string (tenor) banjo, five-string (bluegrass) banjo, timpani, and miscellaneous other percussion instruments, and as the organ pumper for a small Renaissance organ with his sister’s group in Seattle, the Western Wynde Ensemble. And probably more, but he forgets.
Phillip Gaskil is possibly one of the few people alive to have been kissed (well, okay, on the cheek) by Jacqueline du Pre, Roberta Peters, and Midori - AND to have played Jackie’s cello. He pays the rent by being an editor and proofreader of books (since 2003), an occasional computer typesetter/layout artist, and an even more occasional author/technical editor of computer books and articles. He currently lives in New York City. |
