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The Indiana Daily Student

IU School of Music professor, tuba soloist dies at 80

IU Jacobs School of Music professor Harvey Phillips died early Wednesday  in his Bloomington home at the age of 80.

A world-renowned tuba soloist, Phillips became a faculty member in 1971 and was named Distinguished Professor Emeritus.

Two years later he organized the first TubaChristmas concert at New York City’s Rockefeller Center- an event which is now put on in cities around the world.

Phillips retired from IU in 1994.

In 2008, President Michael McRobbie awarded Phillips with IU’s President’s Medal for Excellence, one of the highest honors an IU president can award.

Throughout his music career, Phillips received numerous other honors, and was inducted into the Classical Music Hall of Fame in 2007 as the first brass player.

Phillips died of Parkinson’s disease.

— Molly Johnson

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