Philippe Chao

Assistant Professor of Viola Philippe Chao brings to TTU experience from an expansive career as an orchestral, solo and collaborative performer and as a respected teacher and coach. 

A tenured member of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, he has performed with the Pittsburgh, National, Detroit, Minnesota, and Baltimore Symphonies and was previously the Assistant Principal Violist of the Virginia Symphony.  He is a longstanding member of the Grand Teton Music Festival and is on the faculty of the Sewanee Summer Music Festival.

As a concerto soloist, Philippe has appeared with several orchestras including the Newark Symphony Orchestra, the Virginia Symphony, and the Eclipse Chamber Orchestra. In 2024 he was the featured soloist for both the TTU Symphony Orchestra and the Symphonic Wind Ensemble.

As a chamber musician and recitalist, he has performed with the renowned international artists Robert Koenig, James Buswell, Nathaniel Rosen, Simone Porter, Susan Platts, the Coull Quartet, and Julian Rachlin and with numerous chamber music societies including The Pressenda Chamber Players, the Smithsonian Chamber Orchestra, and the Chamber Music Series at the United States Holocaust Museum. Other appearances have included performances at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage, the Supreme Court, the Garth Newell Music Center, and NPR Broadcasts for Performance Today hosted by Fred Childs. He performed on Broadway in Steve Martin and Edie Brickell's Tony-nominated musical, Bright Star and can be heard on Naxos' album featuring the music of Bernard Herrmann.  As a member of the Lehner String Quartet he has premiered several new works for Vox Novus' Virtual Concert Hall Series.

In demand as a pedagogue, Philippe was invited to present clinics at both the 2022 and 2024 Texas Music Educators Association Conferences in San Antonio. In addition to being invited as the Pre-College Masterclass Teacher for the 2023 ASTA Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida, he frequently serves as an adjudicator and panelist for a number of competitions, the most recently for the Primrose International Viola Competition screening round, the American Viola Society's 2021 Orchestral Excerpt Competition, the Virtual Concert Hall Series’ Sound Espressivo Competition, and several iterations of the American Virtuoso International Music Competition. He previously held professorships at George Mason University and The Catholic University America, has been a faculty member of the American Festival for the Arts and the Eastern Music Festival, and was a Guest Artist-Teacher for the State Department's Artist Exchange Program at the Kennedy Center.

Reflecting his continuing interest in expanding the viola repertoire, he has set and edited several works of Marco Anzoletti (1867-1929) in their premiere editions, has transcribed and published an accompanying second viola part to the Bach Cello Suites and Kreutzer Etudes, and commissioned and premiered new works dedicated to him by the acclaimed Russian composer Sergey Akhunov and the renowned American composer Adolphus Hailstork. Of note was a 2023 All-Hailstork recital with Robert Koenig presented at the Chadwick Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University, Hailstork's alma mater.

His mentors include the esteemed pedagogues Roland and Almita Vamos, the Boston Symphony's Michael Zaretsky, international soloists Gérard Caussé and Donald McInnes, and the Cleveland Orchestra's former Principal Violist, Robert Vernon.