Philip Payton
Philip Payton’s residency has been made possible by the generosity of Dick & Julie Swenson.
Violinist/violist Philip Payton is a member of American Modern Ensemble, American Symphony, Furiant Trio, Gateways Music Festival, Glenwood String Quartet, Sphinx Symphony, The New York Pops, Walla Walla Chamber Music Festival, and Vital Quartet. He also performs and/or has recorded with American Ballet Theater, Alarm Will Sound, Colour of Music, Flux Quartet, Harlem Chamber Players, New Jersey Symphony, Nu Deco Ensemble, The Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Santa Fe Opera, Sarasota Orchestra, and several others.
Philip has performed/recorded with a wide variety of artists, including JAY-Z and Alicia Keys, Cynthia Erivo, Billy Joel, The Who, Eagles, Tyler, The Creator, Pavarotti, Tony Bennett, Lady Gaga, Ed Sheeran, Ariana Grande, and several others. Currently, he is in the orchestra of Broadway’s Schmigadoon and previously Sunset Blvd, The Wiz, Here We Are, Camelot at Lincoln Center, The Music Man, Frozen, as concertmaster of Hello Dolly, Kinky Boots, The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, and West Side Story. He performed on the Grammy Award-winning cast albums of West Side Story and Kinky Boots, the studio orchestras for The Lion King (2019), Da 5 Bloods, Creed III, Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest, and several others.
Philip graduated from the University of Michigan and the Cleveland Institute of Music and was a fellow at the New World Symphony as a co-concertmaster/co-principal second. He teaches chamber music, violin, and viola at the Juilliard School’s MAP program, chamber music and violin at Juilliard Pre-College, violin at the Gray Charter School in Newark, is a coach at the New World Symphony, a coach for the Sphinx Organization’s National Alliance for Audition Support, and has adjudicated mock-auditions at Manhattan School of Music’s Orchestral Performance Program.
