Professor Michael Murray enjoys a varied career as a performer-scholar, dividing his activity between teaching cello and music history at Missouri Sate University. He regularly appears throughout the United States and Europe as a soloist and participant in chamber and orchestral settings. The Arizona Daily Star praises “the glowing cello of Michael Murray” with music making at once “phenomenal” and “featuring tightly focused passion and confident projection.” The Kansas City Star refers to Murray’s playing as “stylish” with “a veloute sauce richness.” Rome’s Corriere della Sera comments that Murray ‘not only demonstrated mastery or his instrument, but also drew beautiful, limpid sounds and elegant phrasing.”
Cellist Michael Murray is the founding member of the Hawthorne Trio, a faculty artist ensemble at MSU. The Hawthorne Trio performs nationally and is featured on the critically acclaimed Albany Records release of music of the New Orleans composer, Stephen Dankner (Troy 144 Albany Records). With the Hawthorne Trio, Murray has performed in the Czech Republic, Poland and England while also being committed to an array of music education initiatives for local middle school and high school string students.
Murray has the distinction of serving as Principal Cellist for two area orchestras: the Springfield Symphony and the North Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. His orchestral background includes work with the Tucson Symphony, Arizona Opera, Minnesota Opera, Minnesota Orchestra, Kansas City Chamber Orchestra and Kansas City Camerata. For a decade, Murray won distinction as cellist for the popular Kansas City Summerfest Chamber Series. He has served since 1989 on the artist faculty of the Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute, a two-week residential school that provides pre-professional training to artistically talented Oklahoma high school students in the visual, literary, or performing arts.
In addition to an active performing schedule, Murray regularly offers upper-level undergraduate and graduate period courses in music of the Baroque, Classical and Romantic eras. He is a National Endowment of the Arts fellowship recipient for post-doctoral research at Harvard University. Murray’s Artist/Scholar Residency in Rome’s American Academy led to research in music for cello by Italian composers of the 1930s. His study in critical thinking in the arts led to a presentation of a paper, The Well-Tempered Ear, at the Center for Critical Thinking and Moral Critique at Sonoma State University.
Michael Murray holds a DMA from the University of Arizona, where he studied cello with Gordon Epperson and music history with James R. Anthony.
Listen to an MP3 sound file of a recent performance. If you do not have a free MP3 player, visit http://www.mp3.com to select one!
You may contact Dr. Murray by phone at (417) 836-5435 or via email at MichaelAMurray@missouristate.edu