Hailed as “brilliant” (Opera Canada, 2024), “excellent” (New York Times, 2022) and “captivating” (Myanmar Times, 2018), Michael Murphy is a Chinese-Canadian percussionist who has toured North America, Scandinavia, Europe, and Asia. As an orchestral musician, he has performed with the Toronto Symphony, the National Ballet of Canada, the Esprit Orchestra, the Hamilton Philharmonic, and the Philharmonisches Orchester Freiburg. In the contemporary music world, he is regularly involved in groups such as New Music Concerts, Continuum, Arraymusic, Soundstreams, Freesound, Ensemble Scope, and with festivals such as Nuit Blanche, the New Creations Festival, 2D2N in Odessa, and Frau* musica nova.

As an advocate of Canadian music and in charge of most of his programming, Michael has brought Canadian music to international waters. He has worked closely with Canadian composers such as Alice Ping Yee Ho, Kotoka Suzuki, among many others, his international connections have brought about new works for percussion from the USA, Hong Kong, Poland, Ukraine, China, Japan, and Germany. Not just as a solo performer, but as a chamber musician in groups such as Duo Holz (with Aysel Taghi-Zada), shshcc (two shōs and accordion), theFreesound Collective, and various ad hocs, he is an avid commissioner.

Michael’s expertise as a chamber musician and performer of new works is captured in the discography of music by Paolo Griffin (Supports and Surfaces, 2024), Russell Hartenberger (Arlington, 2024), Sophie Dupuis (Comme Bon Lui Semble, 2023), and Chris Paul Harman (Works 2019-2023). He is also the featured xylophone-soloist in the videogame Cuphead (Delicious Last Course, 2022 and PS4 Commercial, 2020), with a transcription of his solo from A Recipe for Ms. Chalice published by Mostly Marimba.

A practitioner of non-Western arts, Michael has studied Japanese taiko, Iranian tombak, and spent seven months in Osaka studying Gagaku with members of the Shitennoji Gagaku troupe Garyokai. As a continuation of his Masters thesis Reflections on Western contemporary art music through the study of Gagaku, he is now pursuing a PhD at the Université franco-allemande to research the development of temporality in Japanese Gagaku music and traditional arts through relationships with nature. Since 2020, he has been an avid performer and commissioner of the shō. He commissions works as a soloist and as a member of Duo Holz (with violinist/violist Aysel Taghi-Zada), Duo HS (with clarinettist Carlos Cordeiro) and in the trio shshcc (two shōs and accordion). Michael has been a member of the Book of Mountains and Seas production tour with Ars Nova Copenhagen since its premiere in 2021, with a CD release in 2025, as well as upcoming releases of Brian Current’s opera Missing and the Toronto Symphony’s recordings of the music of Bartok.

Current 2024-2025 season highlights include the release of the Book of Mountains and Seas CD with Ars Nova and the continuation of its tour, the premiere of Bob Becker’s concerto for steel pan, marimba and wind ensemble, and a lecture and recital tour in Japan.

Last Update: March 2025