Hailed as “excellent” (New York Times, 2022) and “captivating” (Myanmar Times, 2018), Chinese-Canadian percussionist Michael Murphy has toured North America, Scandinavia, Europe, and Asia as a chamber and solo musician. Though having performed in groups such as the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Philharmonisches Orchester Freiburg, his focus is in contemporary music and performance of new works. In Canada, this involves him in groups such as New Music Concerts, Array Music, Soundstreams, and the Esprit Orchestra, and with festivals such as Nuit Blanche, the New Creations Festival, 21C Festival at Koerner, and the Luminato Festival. Internationally, this has brought him on multiple occasions to the 2D2D Festival in the Ukraine and the Darmstadt Ferienkurse für neue Musik in Germany, among others.
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 and Kotoka Suzuki, and his international connections have brought about new works for percussion from the USA, Hong Kong, Poland, Ukraine, China, and Germany. Not just as a solo performer, but as a chamber musician in groups such as Duo Holz (with Aysel Taghi-Zada), Freesound Collective, and various ad hocs, he is an avid commissioner.
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 temporality in Japanese Gagaku music and traditional arts. Since 2020, he has been an avid performer and commissioner of the shō with the release of a mini-album for shō and clarinet coming in March.
Since 2021 he has been part of Beth Morrison Project’s production tour of Book of Moutains and Seas with Ars Nova Copenhagen,composer Huang Ruo, and director Basil Twist. It has been presented in Copenhagen, New York and Amsterdam with plans for China, Hong Kong, and multi-city United States tours. In commercial work, he has been a featured on the Cuphead videogame as a xylophone soloist both for the official PS4 commercial and the Delicious Last Course album and game.
Upcoming 2022-2023 season highlights include a performance of the Paul Creston marimba concertino with the Rose Orchestra, the continuation of the tour with Ars Nova with a CD release, and recording for two albums featuring works written for Michael.
Last Update: October 2022