birds/gulls

Jesse Langen, electric guitar

4/18/21

birds/gulls

interlocutor (2021) for piano quartet

interlocutor was written as a part of the 2021 RED NOTE New Music Festival for Left Coast Chamber Ensemble.

Performed April 2021 by Left Coast Chamber Ensemble
Anna Pressler, violin
Phyllis Kamrin, viola
Leighton Fong, cello
Allegra Chapman, piano

Image: "in my opinion" by @constantbageltherapy on instagram

interlocutor (2021) for piano quartet

grain vi | fogging
by James May

Performed by Richard Seiler at New Music on the Bayou 2023
Monroe, Louisiana

grain vi | fogging [piano solo]

Wm. Riley Leitch, conductor
Cory Schreiner, tenor
Cullyn Murphy, tenor
Ian Lundquist, baritone
Gabrielle VanDril, violin I
Rachael Miller, violin II
Eileen Wronkiewicz, viola
Alex Brinkman, cello

Ta-Ka started off as an attempt to make a highly intellectual, highbrow piece of music and has, instead, become an unlikely emotional outlet. Ta-Ka has since morphed itself into a piece that creates its own personal aural world of reflection and development. The text is made up of a self-created system of rhythmic syllables similar to "takadimi." The voices and strings are meant to portray a stark contrast between being intensely percussive and lyrically drifting over each other. It is in this same vein of thought that Ta-Ka has become amusement coexisting with thoughtfulness.

Ta - Ka

Premiered at the University of Iowa's LOUi concert on December 1st 2017. 

Electric Guitar - Jacob P. Simmons
Violin - Andrew Willette
Double Bass - Will Yager

Program Note -

Lineation-Transmutation is an investigation of stochastic/Markovian improvisation. The instrumentalists are provided specific instructions governing sectional local details that result in global surfaces that delineate progressive structures that gradually interpolates from continuous to diffuse sonic material.

Lineation-Transmutation - Electric Guitar, Violin, and Double Bass - 2017

Zachery Meier, flute
Alex Widstrand, bassoon
Justin Comer, tenor saxophone
Alex Spenceri, euphonium
Jeremy Maas, violin
Will Yager, bass
Christine Burke, banjo/EBow

AT A STEADY CONSISTENT RATE (Christine Burke Ensemble)

performed by the University of Iowa, Center for New Music, February 2018

half murmur (Center for New Music, University of Iowa)

This piece explores the feelings and imagery of my experiences in sauna and ice plunging during my study abroad in Finland.

Premiered at New Music on the Point June 18, 2018

Thanks to the incredible musicians/friends who made it happen:
John Pickford Richards (viola), Elijah Spies (viola), Louise King (cello), Laura Nygren (bass), Will Yager (bass)

plunge

A piece for soprano, double bass, two bass drums, and electronics. Premiered as part of the New Music on the Point Festival in June 2019.  
Performed by
LIGAMENT (Soprano+Bass)
Jan Williams and Emerson Wahl (Percussion)

unpinned momentum

Live from the 2019 Cortona Sessions Contemporary Performance Competition (Cortona, Italy)

Photo credit: Tina Tallon

Jacob Druckman: Valentine

My immense gratitude to the JACK Quartet for their thought and attention in this reading!

mastered by carlos cotallo solares

manifold

Cullyn D. Murphy (b.1993) is a composer, conductor, vocalist, and educator from Champaign, Illinois. His music has been performed and commissioned by the Longleash Trio, Line Upon Line Percussion, the Thompson Street Opera Company, New Music Gathering, New Music On the Point Festival, Illinois State University's Symphonic Wind Ensemble, Louisville University Symphony Orchestra, Wm. Riley Leitch, and many others. Murphy's music has been described as “theatrical," "riveting and inventive,” and "push[ing] the idea of what music and musical organization is." (Composer's Toolbox) His music draws from his experiences in absurdity, theater, education, and current events. Murphy received his B.M.E. in Music Education-Choral and his B.M. in Theory/Composition from Illinois State University, M.M. in Music Composition at the University of Louisville where he was a recipient of the Bomhard Fellowship, and is currently pursuing his doctorate at the University of Pittsburgh where he received the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences Fellowship. In the fall of 2017, he co-founded AmiEnsemble (an experimental trio/composer collective) for whom he regularly composes, directs, and performs. His private studies include Roy Magnuson, Carl Schimmel, Martha C. Horst, Steve Rouse, Krzysztof Wolek, Eric Moe, and Mathew Rosenblum.

contact at cullynmurphy@gmail.com

Ta - Ka

Cullyn D. Murphy

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