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Winifred Phillips's Blog
BAFTA nominated composer Winifred Phillips is one of the most successful and accomplished composers for video games. She is known for her compositional skill and stylistic diversity. Her dramatic large-scale works convey an “epic cinematic sound” (ScreenSounds) that “drives her music forward in grand orchestral fashion” (Film Score Monthly), while her more lighthearted scores are “captivating” (Washington Post).
Phillips has composed iconic music for titles from five of the biggest franchises in gaming: Assassin’s Creed, LittleBigPlanet, Total War, God of War, and The Sims. She was most recently nominated for a BAFTA award for music she composed for the smash-hit game Sackboy: A Big Adventure. To date, Phillips has composed music for over fifty video games.
Phillips’ scores have received numerous awards, including the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Award for Outstanding Music Composition, six Game Audio Network Guild Awards (including Music of the Year), and three Hollywood Music in Media Awards. Her work has also been nominated by the NAVGTR Awards and the International Film Music Critics Awards.
Her television work includes PBS' NOVA, Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown on CNN, the network sitcom It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia starring Danny Davito, and the long-running Nature series on PBS. Her music has also been featured in trailers for such blockbuster movies as Avengers: Endgame and Disney’s The Jungle Book.
Phillips has released fifty nine albums. Her soundtrack album for the Legend of the Guardians video game was the first video game soundtrack album released by WaterTower Music – the film music record label of Warner Bros. Pictures.
Phillips is the author of the bestselling book, A Composer’s Guide to Game Music (The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press), which won a GMA Book Award Gold Medal from the Global Music Awards, a National Indie Excellence Book Award, a Nonfiction Book Award from the Nonfiction Authors Association, and an Annual Game Music Award from Game Music Online in the category of "Best Publication." Singling out Phillips’ book for praise, film composer Harry Gregson-Williams said, “Winifred Phillips’ passion and understanding of this medium comes to life on the page and is a direct result of her vast experience and accomplishment in composing for video games.” Jon Burlingame, the film music reporter for Variety, hailed Phillips’ book as “a beautifully organized, intelligently written book about music for games,” and Film Score Monthly praised the book as "a touchstone academic achievement.”
As a recognized expert in the field of video game composition, Phillips has given lectures at the Library of Congress, the Society of Composers and Lyricists, the Audio Engineering Society, the Game Developers Conference, and the Montreal International Game Summit, among many others. Her music has been performed in celebrated concert halls around the world as a part of the Assassin’s Creed Symphony World Tour.
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