FSO’s Violinist and violist Holland Phillips was born in Mississippi and raised by North Carolinian parents. It was only natural that she would eventually call North Carolina home. She and her family relocated to Rockingham, North Carolina from Portland, Oregon in October of 2020. In Oregon, she taught at Pacific University and Lewis and Clark College. She simultaneously served as the principal violist of the Eugene Symphony. Her busy career also included performing regularly with musicians of the Oregon Symphony, the 45th Parallel Universe, Mousai REMIX string quartet, the Oregon Bach Festival, and the Portland Chamber Orchestra. She has played under the batons of John Williams, Giancarlo Guerrero, Helmuth Rilling, and Marin Alsop as well as accompanied Itzhak Perlman, Joshua Bell, and Renée Fleming. Holland continues to travel back west to perform as principal violist of both OrchestraNext (Eugene Ballet) and the Sunriver Music Festival.
She currently teaches at the University Of North Carolina at Pembroke and plays in several orchestras in the North Carolina region, including as a member of the first violin section of the Fayetteville Symphony. She is also working to build musical communities through chamber music performances and educational outreach in underserved areas of North Carolina, currently focusing on the Sandhills region.
Holland completed her doctoral studies at the University of Oregon with her dissertation, “Tidens Fylde: Temporality and Tradition in Carl Nielsen’s Works for Violin.” She also holds degrees from Vanderbilt University (summa cum laude), and the New England Conservatory(honors). She also holds diplomas from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and the Leipzig Hochschule für Musikund Theater in Leipzig, Germany.
