Phillip Houghton
Phillip Houghton’s guitar music has been performed and recorded by leading musicians, including John Williams and Timothy Kain. A self-taught composer, he drew on classical, jazz, rock, ambient and world music.
Phillip Houghton was born in 1954 in Melbourne. Originally trained as an artist, he began music studies at twenty, with advice and encouragement from the late John Champ, and studied classical guitar with Sebastian Jorgensen at the artists’ colony Montsalvat in Eltham, Victoria, where he later lived and worked.
As a guitarist he toured extensively and was recorded by the ABC before leaving performance in 1980 to concentrate on composition. Helen Gifford and Peter Mumme encouraged his developing style. He wrote for theatre, dance and film, including John Dingwall’s feature The Custodian and Tony Lawrence’s Plasmo animation series.
Early influences ranged from Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, King Crimson, Gryphon, Gong and Miles Davis to Satie, Debussy, Ravel, Riley, Crumb and Eno. His work kept a strong interest in art, mythology and the environment.
Some twenty of his guitar solos, published by Moonstone Music, are on the AMEB national syllabus, and he is also represented in the Benjamin Verdery Guitar Series for Frederick Harris Publishers.
Artist's website: www.philliphoughton.com.au
Compositions by Phillip Houghton appear on
Six Fish
Guitar Trek began in 1987 and broke new ground for the guitar with a special “family” of instruments: standard guitars by Greg Smallman, treble guitars by Eugene Philp and Greg Smallman, and baritone and bass guitars by Graham Caldersmith.