Our Director
Mr. Phil Morgan-Ellis conductor/director of SCO
Phil Morgan-Ellis grew up in Utah, where he played violin in the Golden Spike Youth Symphony. He did his work in Music Education at Weber State University and graduated from WSU in 1972. Mr. Morgan-Ellis then left for Seattle, and broader horizons.
In Seattle he performed and taught with the Thalia Orchestras, and studied under Michael Scherimetiew and Frances Walton, and also worked under Dr. Stanley Chappel. For 13 years he taught at the Thalia Summer Camp. For a short while he worked with Donald McGuiness at the University of Washington.
Mr. Morgan-Ellis' first teaching experience in the public schools was in Missoula, Montana, where, for two years he worked with the Missoula Grade Schools and the Missoula Youth Orchestra. He performed with the Missoula Civic Symphony and the Little Symphony at the University of Montana.
He then moved to Port Angeles, where he taught orchestra, band, and computers in the elementary and middle school of the Port Angeles School District. For several years he studied viola with Yaraslov Karlofski in Victora, Canada.
Mr. Morgan-Ellis and his wife started what was to become the North Olympic Youth Symphonies in 1979, and together they managed and conducted this group of orchestras for 25 years. They received a citation for their work from the Port Angeles Education Foundation in 1995, and were also named Clallam County Citizens of the Year in 1996. The Port Angeles Symphony give them the Biz Gehrke Award for their work with the youth of the peninsula in 1995.
Mr. Morgan-Ellis was principal violist in the Port Angeles Symphony until he moved from Washington State to Costa Rica in 2006. There he taught in the National Youth Orchestra and the European School in Heredia. After four years he returned to the peninsula to start up Mr. Phil's Strings, a group of after school orchestras for elementary and middle school string students. He and his wife have many private violin and viola students.
In February of 2012 he was asked by Lili Green to direct and conduct the Sequim Community Orchestra.
