Philip Powers facts for kids

Philip Powers (born in 1963) is an Australian record producer and author. He is known for his work with film scores and classical music. His recordings have been nominated for five ARIA Awards. These awards celebrate the best in Australian music.

Philip has produced many CDs for different labels. He made 34 CDs for 1M1 Records. These include soundtracks for movies like The Lighthorsemen and The Coolangatta Gold. He has also produced over 50 CDs for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. He worked with famous conductors like Vladimir Ashkenazy and Gianluigi Gelmetti. One special CD featured Vladimir Ashkenazy playing rare music by Rachmaninov.

Philip Powers' Career

Philip Powers started his career in music after graduating from the University of New South Wales. In 1986, he became the Director of Music for Film Australia. This was a big role in the Australian film industry.

Working with Film Music

From 1983 to 1988, Philip was in charge of music for over 200 Film Australia projects. He worked on many different types of films. These included the documentary Cane Toads. He also collaborated with well-known directors like Gillian Armstrong and Jane Campion.

Philip supervised music for The Movers, a film by Academy Award-winning director Bruce Petty. He also produced the recording for Annie's Coming Out. This film won the AFI Best Film award in 1984. Years later, he released its soundtrack on his own 1M1 Records label.

He started producing film score CDs in 1988. He worked with composers like Simon Walker and Brian May. He helped bring the music from classic Australian films to CD. Some of these films include The Lighthorsemen, We of the Never Never, and The Coolangatta Gold. He also produced the music for a TV series called The Celluloid Heroes.

Philip also wrote music for plays, documentaries, and animated films. He has composed classical music for orchestras, synthesizers, and piano.

Animated Films and Documentaries

One of his animated projects was Ironbark Bill (1985). This was a five-episode TV short narrated by John Clarke. It was even shown in cinemas before popular movies like Santa Clause and Crocodile Dundee.

He also worked on documentaries like "Town Under Threat." This film was about the danger of a volcano in Rabaul. He produced music for training films too, such as "Let 'em Vote" and "Saturday Saturday." He even worked on a classified army training film called "Combat Zone."

Other projects included films about accounting and a supernatural drama. He also worked on a documentary about the famous Gulflander train. This train runs from Croydon to Normanton.

Producing Classical Music

Philip's work with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra began in 2008. He was their recording manager. He worked closely with conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy. Together, they recorded many classical pieces.

They recorded eight CDs of music by Elgar and Prokofiev. This included all their symphonies and piano concertos. In the next three years, they recorded 10 more CDs. These featured all the symphonies by Mahler.

In 2014, Philip started producing live webstreams of concerts. He also created videos for on-demand viewing. This helped more people enjoy the orchestra's performances.

He also produced recordings of contemporary classical music. One notable CD, Music for Pianos, Percussion and Synthesizers, included his own work called "Wired." In 2016, a recording he produced, "Josh Pyke with the SSO," won an ARIA Award. In 2017, he produced two concerts for Foxtel and directed a film of a performance by the Sydney Youth Orchestra.

Philip Powers as an Author

In 2020, Philip Powers wrote a book. It is titled “Black and White: Sidney Poitier's Emergence in the 1960s as a Black Icon”. This book explores the rise of Sidney Poitier as an important Black icon in the 1960s.

Classical Releases

Philip Powers has been a producer or executive producer for many classical music recordings. Here are some examples of his work with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and other artists:

Year	Composer	Work	Artists	Label	CD Producer
2015	Antonio Vivaldi	The Four Seasons	James Ehnes / Sydney Symphony Orchestra	SSO Live	Y
2014	Josh Pyke	Josh Pyke - Live with the SSO	Christopher Dragon / Josh Pyke / Sydney Symphony Orchestra	ABC Classics	Y
2014	Gustav Holst	The Planets	David Robertson / Sydney Symphony Orchestra	SSO Live	Y
2013	Pyotr Tchaikovsky	Piano Concerto No. 2 in G, Op.44	Vladimir Ashkenazy / Garrick Ohlsson / Sydney Symphony Orchestra	SSO Live	Y
2013	Nigel Westlake & Lior	Compassion	Nigel Westlake / Lior / Sydney Symphony Orchestra	ABC Classics	N
2012	Ross Edwards	Saxophone Concerto (Full Moon Dances)	Miguel Harth-Bedoya / Amy Dickson / Sydney Symphony Orchestra	ABC Classics	N
2011	Gustav Mahler	Symphony No. 6	Vladimir Ashkenazy / Sydney Symphony Orchestra	SSO Live	Y
2011	Brett Dean	Violin Concerto - The Lost Art of Letter Writing	Jonathn Nott / Frank Peter Zimmermann / Sydney Symphony Orchestra	BIS / SSO Live	Y
2009-2011	Sergei Prokofiev	Romeo and Juliet ballet (complete)	Vladimir Ashkenazy / Sydney Symphony Orchestra	SSO Live	Y
2010	Pyotr Tchaikovsky	Violin Concerto in D, Op.35	Vladimir Ashkenazy / James Ehnes / Sydney Symphony Orchestra	SSO Live	Y
2010	Gustav Mahler	Symphony No. 1	Vladimir Ashkenazy / Sydney Symphony Orchestra	Exton	Y
2010	Gustav Mahler	Symphony No. 8 in E-flat major Symphony of a Thousand	Vladimir Ashkenazy / Adelaide Symphony Chorus / Sydney Symphony Orchestra	Exton / SSO Live	Y
2009	Sergei Rachmaninoff	Rare Rachmaninoff	Vladimir Ashkenazy / Goldner String Quartet	SSO Live	Y
2009	Sergei Prokofiev	Symphony No. 1	Vladimir Ashkenazy / Sydney Symphony Orchestra	SSO Live / Exton	N
2009	Sergei Prokofiev	Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major Op.26 (1921)	Vladimir Ashkenazy / Alexander Gavrylyuk / Sydney Symphony Orchestra	Exton	N
2008	Edward Elgar	Cello Concerto in E minor, Op.85	Vladimir Ashkenazy (cond.) / Jian Wang (soloist) / Sydney Symphony Orchestra	Universal	N
2008	Gianluigi Gelmetti	Song of Life (Cantata della vita)	Gianluigi Gelmetti (cond.) / Sydney Symphony Orchestra	SSO Live	Y
2008	Edward Elgar	Symphony No. 1	Vladimir Ashkenazy / Sydney Symphony Orchestra	Exton	N
2008	Richard Strauss	Thus Sprach Zarathustra	Charles Mackerras / Sydney Symphony Orchestra	SSO Live	Y
2008	Johannes Brahms	Symphony No. 1	Gianluigi Gelmtti / Sydney Symphony Orchestra	SSO Live	Y