Philip sang as a boy at Southwell Minster and took organ lessons with Paul Hale before going off to be Organ Scholar at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. He then did a Post Graduate Diploma in Piano Accompaniment at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, studying piano principally with John York, and playing in masterclasses with Graham Johnson and Iain Burnside.

As an accompanist he has performed in London, Paris, Edinburgh and Stockholm as well as recording a CD entitled The Soul of Orpheus with the singer Sally Bradshaw. He is a regular house pianist at the Summer Music School at Ardingly College and and has written for Piano magazine on Songs and Proverbs of William Blake by Benjamin Britten. In 2006 he co-directed the Nottingham Finzi Festival, the largest ever festival of Gerald Finzi’s music to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of his death.

In 2003 he returned home to Nottingham as Director of Music at St Peter’s Church, Nottingham and Assistant Conductor and Accompanist of Nottingham Bach Choir.