Phillippa Cole

Phillippa Cole is chief artistic officer at the San Francisco Symphony where she has served since 2019, overseeing all aspects of programming and working closely with music director Esa-Pekka Salonen. In November 2024, she will join Opus 3 Artists as its senior vice president. Previously, she served as the associate director of artistic planning for the Los Angeles Philharmonic where she programmed classical music for the Hollywood Bowl and the Green Umbrella series. At London’s Almeida Theatre, Cole worked predominately on the contemporary opera season, producing a number of new commissions from composers such as Thomas Ades, Harrison Birtwistle, and Michael Nyman. She then moved to the English National Opera where she was the casting administrator and oversaw the young singers program. She spent twelve years as an agent with the artist management company Askonas Holt, where she represented seventeen artists, focusing on conductors, singers, and stage directors. Her clients included Michael Tilson Thomas, Sir Simon Rattle, James Gaffigan, Ian Bostridge, Magdalena Kozena, and Deborah Warner. Cole studied the oboe at the Royal Academy of Music in London.