Philip Espe, Music Director
NIH Community Orchestra
Conductor, clarinetist, and educator Philip Espe was named Music Director of the NIHCO in Spring 2022.
Recent performance highlights include creating the District Philharmonic Music Festival at the West End Neighborhood Library (DC), conducting the Blessed Sacrament Catholic Parish Festival Orchestra, and conducting a performance for the Argentine Embassy in celebration of Argentina’s bicentennial. In 2022, he joined “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band as a Music Librarian.
Prior to his service in the Marine Band, Espe was a Library Associate at the DC Public Library specializing in children’s literature, education, and arts integration. He is the former manager of the DC Youth Orchestra Program’s Children’s Orchestra, an El Sistema-inspired music education program serving four Title 1 DC Public Schools. He is a 2021-2022 American Library Association Spectrum Scholar and has presented for the American Library Association’s Annual Conference and the Association for Library Service to Children on multicultural outreach and children’s music programming.
Mr. Espe holds a Master of Music degree in Orchestral Conducting from Northwestern University, an Artist Diploma in Conducting from San Diego State University, a Master of Science in Library Science from the University of North Texas, and a Bachelor of Music degree in Clarinet Performance from DePaul University. His principal mentors include Victor Yampolsky, Matthew Rowe, Julie DeRoche, and Larry Combs.
Philip Espe’s participation in NIHCO activities is in an unofficial capacity and neither “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band, the U.S. Marine Corps nor any other component of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government has endorsed it.