Phil Toms

Active YSTV member in 1995-6 while a music technology postgrad student at York, Phil had an amazing talent for composing clever pastiches of TV theme tunes, creating original music for the title sequences for Campus Today (a brilliant Richard-and-Judy 'This Morning' rip-off), Week by Week, Duck Nation and Soapwatch. He also produced and directed several short programmes including YMTV, Get Scoffed! and Merry Christmas from YSTV using a funky version of Jingle Bells

Phil Toms is an active musician in East Anglia, specialising in double bass, piano and keyboards. His musical interests bridge the gap between classical, jazz, music theatre and popular music. Having spent the past ten years teaching in primary and secondary schools, he is currently lecturing on Music in Education, Music Technology, Music History and Musicianship skills as the Curriculum Manager for Music (Further Education) at the Colchester Institute, where he studied before his year at York.

In 2004 Phil was awarded the Leader of the Year Award for Outstanding Service to Youth by the Jack Petchey Foundation, when he was Assistant Team Leader for Expressive Arts and Head of Music at Shenfield High School.

More recently, he has worked with Jon Anderson, violinist Stephen Bingham and has also composed the national ident for BT's text-to-speech phone service.

He can be contacted through www.co1.org.uk, where he is a trustee for youth charity CO1 transforming the oldest building in Colchester (Holy Trinity Church) into a vibrant youth café, music venue and heritage centre.