An experienced radio and podcasting creator, Tony's career has taken him from producing, reporting and Commissioning Editor at BBC World Service and BBC Radio 4 (creating The Listening Project), to Vice President at WNYC Studios, New York and to Broccoli Content/Sony Music in the UK. At WNYC he created and developed A Piece of Work with Abbi Jacobson, made in partnership with MoMA, was the Executive Producer on Freakonomics Radio with Stephen Dubner and managed editorial partnerships. Most recently, Tony wrote and reported an Archive on 4 for BBC Radio 4 on the tragic life of David Oluwale, a Nigerian migrant to Britain in the 1960s. Tony is executive producer with independent TV company Northern Town Productions, and part of the award-winning team who produced the Liverpool-based Statues Redressed documentary film for Sky Arts questioning the presence, place and power of public statues. In 2022 Tony completed his PhD at the University of East Anglia writing about audio, storytelling and the African diaspora.
Tony Phillips appears in the following:
A Radio Special: Mozart’s "Abduction from the Seraglio"
Thursday, August 17, 2023
In the prime of his illustrious career, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ran in the realm of prominent, Black visionaries. But after composing “Zaide,” an unfinished opera depicting a slave re...
A Radio Special: Verdi’s "Aida”
Thursday, August 10, 2023
At the heart of “Aida” is an African love story: the Ethiopian princess Aida is torn between loyalty to her country and passion for her captor, the Egyptian general Radamès, who loves...
A Radio Special: Verdi's "Otello"
Thursday, August 03, 2023
“Otello” debuted in Milan in 1887, just two years after European nations gathered in Berlin to agree on a campaign to carve up and colonize the African continent for their own profit....
A Radio Special: Mozart’s "The Magic Flute"
Thursday, July 27, 2023
In this radio special of “Every Voice with Terrance McKnight,” enjoy this season’s journey into Mozart’s "The Magic Flute," its investigation into the overlooked character of Monostat...
Every Voice with Terrance McKnight: Abduction from the Seraglio
Thursday, July 06, 2023
In this final episode of the four-part radio series, host Terrance McKnight goes in search of opera’s future with composers, musicians, and thinkers of today.
Every Voice with Terrance McKnight: Aida
Monday, July 03, 2023
WQXR
Terrance McKnight digs into the musical, historical, and social environment that gave rise to Verdi's Aida.
Every Voice with Terrance McKnight: The Magic Flute
Monday, June 19, 2023
In this episode of Every Voice, get to know the character of Monostatos, the enslaved overseer of the wizard Sarastro’s temple.
Abduction from the Seraglio: Revelations
Thursday, June 01, 2023
With such a dark past, what does the future look like for opera as an art form? From Verdi to Mozart, many of opera’s most celebrated works famously reduce people of African descent t...
Abduction from the Seraglio: A Blind Eye
Thursday, May 25, 2023
Mozart’s “The Abduction from the Seraglio” was first heard in Vienna in 1782, commissioned by Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II to cater to the German-speaking audience of the capital city...
Abduction from the Seraglio: A Dream Interrupted
Thursday, May 18, 2023
In the prime of his illustrious career, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ran in the realm of prominent, Black visionaries, composed the radical (unfinished) opera “Zaide” depicting a slave rev...
Abduction from the Seraglio: Freedom and Justice for Some
Thursday, May 11, 2023
All too often, characters of African descent in operas written during the 18th and 19th centuries are defined as the institution of slavery and the idea of inferiority. But today’s c...
Aida: America’s Confederates in Egypt
Thursday, May 04, 2023
When “Aida” premiered in Egypt in 1871, it delivered some not-so-subtle messaging in the dramatization of light-skinned Egyptians dominating dark-skinned Ethopians. Within two years, ...
Aida: 100% Egyptian Cotton
Thursday, April 27, 2023
“Opera has always been not just adjacent to colonial conquest, but perhaps … quite a large part of it.” Pranathi Diwakar, Every Voice with Terrance McKnight researcher. When the US an...
Aida: Off the Chain
Thursday, April 20, 2023
At the heart of Verdi's opera “Aida” is an African love story, where an Egyptian general and an Ethiopian princess fall in love. It premiered in Cairo in 1871, but the truth is, very ...
Aida: Red Heart, White Eyes
Thursday, April 13, 2023
In Giuseppe Verdi’s “Aida,” Princess Aida is torn between her homeland of Ethiopia (ruled by her father, King Amonasro) and her captor, the Egyptian leader Radamès who loves her and w...
Otello: The North Star
Thursday, April 06, 2023
As the one Black man in Shakespeare’s play and Verdi’s opera, Otello was not only tokenized, but villainized, criticized and minimized. With such an emphasis on Otello’s flaws, how is...
Otello: Black Handkerchiefs Matter
Thursday, March 30, 2023
Giuseppe Verdi's Otello rose from enslavement to the ranks of army general and marries an aristocratic Venetian woman. It’s difficult to imagine the rich cultural heritage of Otello’...
Otello: Haters
Thursday, March 23, 2023
This week on Every Voice with Terrance McKnight, we go deeper into Giuseppe Verdi's character of the “Moor of Venice." Otello is a celebrated general in the Venetian army, and as a Bl...
Otello: UNMOORED
Thursday, March 16, 2023
“Otello” debuted in Milan in 1887, just two years after European nations gathered in Berlin to agree on a campaign to carve up and colonize the African continent for their own profit....
The Magic Flute: Recycling
Thursday, March 09, 2023
The use of blackface is a dying trend, but it was fundamental to one of the most popular operas of all time, Mozart’s hit comedic opera, “The Magic Flute“. Over the last few decades a...
