Dr. Jeff Phillips has joined the Cedar Creek Community band as director for the 2022-2023 season. He is in his seventeenth year
as adjunct instructor of trombone and commercial brass at Belmont
University and performs with the Belmont Faculty Brass Quintet. He retired from secondary school teaching after 34 years, 29 as the Director of Bands at Hendersonville High School where he coordinated all facets of the program there including AP Music Theory, marching band, two concert bands, and two jazz bands in addition to founding the school string orchestra.
Under his direction the bands performed at five state and two national conventions, and numerous other festivals and events throughout the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. He also taught at Pope John Paul II High School and as adjunct trombone instructor at Western Kentucky University.
He has earned degrees from Middle Tennessee State University, Western Kentucky University, and Austin Peay State University, and California Coast University with his dissertation on “Implementing Standards in the Band and Orchestra Rehearsal” (which was been published in part by the National Association of College Wind and Percussion Instructors).
Phillips also holds a Diploma in Trombone Performance from the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music.
As a performer, he remains active as a freelance trombonist in the Nashville area. In addition to various recitals and clinics, he has also been the featured performer with the Belmont Wind Ensemble and Belmont Jazz Ensemble. He is a charter member of the Tri-Star Brass Ensemble (which is a collaboration between Belmont, Vanderbilt, and MTSU Brass faculty members).
Dr. Phillips has conducted clinics in Tennessee, Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, North Carolina, Missouri, Georgia and Mississippi for students in middle school through college and is active as an adjudicator for music groups of all genres throughout the Southeast.
He has also published a variety of articles in the Bandworld, School Band and Orchestra and Tennessee Musician magazines and was a co-author of the MENC’s Strategies for Teaching series and has published numerous music reviews for the National Association of College Wind and Percussion Instructors’ Journal.
Selected to the MTSU “Band of Blue Club” Hall of Fame in 1991, Phillips was also named as one of the MTSU School of Music’s Distinguished Alumni in 2017.
He is also the Pastor of Saundersville United Methodist Church in Hendersonville and serves with the Cumberland River District of the United Methodist Church.
He has served as President of the Middle Tennessee School Band and Orchestra Association, the Tennessee Chapter of the International Association for Jazz Education and the Tennessee Music Education Association.
Dr. Phillips served two years as the National Treasurer for the American School Band Directors Association and was elected to the position of President-elect for the ASBDA and served in the office of President of this organization for the 2008-2009 year.
He currently serves ASBDA as the Chair of the Goldman-Harding Awards Committee and as the State Chair for the Tennessee chapter.
Dr. Phillips also holds membership in a variety of music education associations including Phi Beta Mu and the International Trombone Association and is an adjudicator for the ENKOR International Music Awards.
In his “spare” time, he resides in Foley, Alabama with his two rescue dogs, Crockett and Daisy. Phillips is also a Jupiter Band Instrument Performing Artist and Educational Clinician and performs on Jupiter and XO trombones and euphoniums exclusively.
Updated August 24, 2022