Diedre Murray | |
---|---|
Born | New York |
Genres | Jazz, classical |
Occupation | Musician |
Instrument | Cello |
Years active | 1970s–present |
Diedre Murray is an American cellist and composer specializing in jazz and musical theater. She also works as a record producer and curator.
As a performer she has worked with Leroy Jenkins, Marvin "Hannibal" Peterson, Henry Threadgill, [1] Muhal Richard Abrams, James Brown, Julius Hemphill, Fred Hopkins, Jason Kao Hwang, and Archie Shepp, in addition to leading her ensembles, and has appeared on over 50 recordings as a cellist, composer, arranger and/or producer.
A native of New York, Murray received a B.S. degree from Hunter College in ethnomusicology, and studied at the Manhattan School of Music. [2]
Early composing for theater or music productions: a score for the inaugural concert at the Danny Kaye/Sylvia Fine Playhouse entitled "Five Minute Tango", performed by the Manhattan Brass Quintet; The Conversation for the Seattle-based New Performance Group at the Walker Art Center in Minnesota for the Music in Motion program; Flashes, a structured improvised collaboration with choreographer Blondell Cummings and musicians Jeanne Lee and Pauline Oliveros for the Firewall Festival 1993; and music for Helen Thorington's radio piece Dracula's Wives for broadcast: a tour of Flashes to the Taklos Festival in Switzerland; and, a dramatized version of Unending Pain, with text by Laurie Carlos, at P.S. 122 in New York City. Her work as a composer was intermixed with an extensive concert schedule as a band leader and concert soloist.
Ms. Murray was also a curator of music programs in the 1990's and early 2000's. She curated programing for the Jamaica Arts Center, Jazz at St. Mary's, P.S. 122 and the 53rd Street Y. She is the co-creator (along with Craig Harris) of the Firewall Festival, produced by P.S. 122, which played in New York City and Philadelphia.
In 1996 her composing projects included: You Don't Miss Your Water, a music-theater piece, in collaboration with poet Cornelius Eady produced by the Music Theatre Group; the premiere of Women in the Dunes, a dance piece created by Blondell Cummings for the Japan Society and Mu Lan-Pi, her dance theatrescape commissioned by District Curators and performed in Washington, D.C. by the Ajax Moving Dance Company. In 1998 Murray developed the jazz opera The Running Man, for which she wrote the original story, score, and book with collaborators Cornelius Eady and Diane Paulus. Murray also conceived Songbird: The Life and Times of Ella Fitzgerald , for which she wrote the original music. She received a grant from the Commissioning Project to write Eleven Elements of Joy for orchestra, which debuted in June 1999.
In 2000 she wrote a chamber and choral piece for the Commissioning Project. In 2001 she wrote arrangements for the musical Eli's Coming, for which she won her second Obie. In 2002 she composed the score for Brutal Imagination, a verse play by Cornelius Eady. Other works include Strings Attached, a dance piece by choreographer Risa Jaroslow; Best of Both Worlds created by Randy Weiner and Diane Paulus; and a collaboration with Sonoko Kawahara on Name of the Flower, a music-theater piece; The Iliad and The Odyssey produced by Music Theater Group and Kathryn Walker. Murray collaborated with Paulus on the musical The Best of Both Worlds . Other projects include a collaboration with Carl Hancock Rux on The Blackamoor Angel, a full-length opera, a collaboration with Lynn Nottage on the musical Sweet Billy and the Zooloos; The Voice Within, an a cappella theater piece for ten voices with text by Marcus Gardley, at Aaron Davis Hall during a yearlong residency at Harlem Stages. She adapted the music for Tony Award winning production of The Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, directed by Diane Paulus in 2012 which played at the Richard Rodgers Theater. In 2019 she collaborated with Regina Taylor on two productions, "Crowns", produced by The Long Wharf and McCarter Theaters, and "Oo Bla Dee" produced by Three Rivers Theater.
Recent projects include working with Deborah Brevoort on "Loving", a musical based on the ground breaking relationship of Richard and Mildred Loving; scoring Chesney Snow's The Soil Beneath, a streamed choreopoem produced by Primary Stages; writing the score for Patient Zero, an opera, libretto by Cornelius Eady and Ms. Murray for Music Theater Group; composing music for an Opera on Tap production slated for December 2021; new music for a dance production by choreographer Dianne McIntyre, a retrospective of Ms. McIntyre's career; composing the soundtrack for "An Apology", based on the book written by V, formerly known as Eve Ensler.
With Leroy Jenkins and The Jazz Composer's Orchestra
With Muhal Richard Abrams
With Marvin "Hannibal" Peterson
With Henry Threadgill
George Balanchine was a Georgian-American ballet choreographer, recognized as one of the most influential choreographers of the 20th-century. Styled as the father of American ballet, he co-founded the New York City Ballet and remained its artistic director for more than 35 years. His choreography is characterized by plotless ballets with minimal costume and décor, performed to classical and neoclassical music.
Henry Threadgill is an American composer, saxophonist and flautist. He came to prominence in the 1970s leading ensembles rooted in jazz but with unusual instrumentation and often incorporating other genres of music. He has performed and recorded with several ensembles: Air, Aggregation Orb, Make a Move, the seven-piece Henry Threadgill Sextett, the twenty-piece Society Situation Dance Band, Very Very Circus, X-75, and Zooid.
Anna Sokolow was an American dancer and choreographer. Sokolow's work is known for its social justice focus and theatricality. Throughout her career, Sokolow supported of the development of modern dance around the world, including in Mexico and Israel.
Tom Chiu (邱崇德) is a violinist and composer of Taiwanese origin working and living in Brooklyn, New York. He is the founder of the FLUX Quartet, who are widely recognized for their performances of technically challenging cutting-edge compositions, including Morton Feldman's six-hour marathon String Quartet No. 2.
Leroy Jenkins was an American composer and violinist/violist.
Susan P. Stroman is an American theatre director, choreographer, and performer. Her notable theater productions include Oklahoma!, The Music Man, Crazy for You, Contact, The Producers, The Frogs, The Scottsboro Boys, Bullets Over Broadway, POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, and New York, New York.
Jeanine Tesori, known earlier in her career as Jeanine Levenson, is an American composer and musical arranger best known for her work in the theater. She is the most prolific and honored female theatrical composer in history, with five Broadway musicals and six Tony Award nominations. She won the 1999 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music in a Play for Nicholas Hytner's production of Twelfth Night at Lincoln Center, the 2004 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music for Caroline, or Change, the 2015 Tony Award for Best Original Score for Fun Home, making them the first female writing team to win that award, and the 2023 Tony Award for Best Original Score for Kimberly Akimbo. She was named a Pulitzer Prize for Drama finalist twice for Fun Home and Soft Power.
David Lang is an American composer living in New York City. Co-founder of the musical collective Bang on a Can, he was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Music for The Little Match Girl Passion, which went on to win a 2010 Grammy Award for Best Small Ensemble Performance by Paul Hillier and Theatre of Voices. Lang was nominated for an Academy Award for "Simple Song #3" from the film Youth.
The Vineyard Theatre is a 120-seat Off-Broadway non-profit theatre company, located at 108 East 15th Street in Manhattan, New York City, near Union Square. Founded in 1981 by Barbara Zinn Krieger, the Vineyard states that its goal is "to give daring artists a safe space to create exhilarating, original theatre." The company is operated by Vineyard Theatre and Workshop Center Inc., a nonprofit organization.
Cornelius Eady is an American writer focusing largely on matters of race and society. His poetry often centers on jazz and blues, family life, violence, and societal problems stemming from questions of race and class. His poetry is often praised for its simple and approachable language.
Martha Clarke is an American theater director and choreographer noted for her multidisciplinary approach to theatre, dance, and opera productions. Her best-known original work is The Garden of Earthly Delights, an exploration in theatre, dance, music and flying of the famous painting of the same name by Hieronymus Bosch. The production was honored with a Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience, an Obie Award for Richard Peaslee's original score, and a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for choreography.
Fred Hopkins was an American double bassist who played a major role in the development of the avant-garde jazz movement. He was best known for his association with the trio Air with Henry Threadgill and Steve McCall, and for his numerous performances and extensive recordings with major jazz musicians such as Muhal Richard Abrams, Arthur Blythe, Oliver Lake, and David Murray. He was a member of the AACM, and a frequent participant in the loft jazz scene of the 1970s. He also co-led a number of albums with the composer and cellist Diedre Murray. Gary Giddins wrote that Hopkins' playing "fused audacious power with mercuric reflexes." Howard Reich, writing in the Chicago Tribune, stated that "many connoisseurs considered [Hopkins] the most accomplished jazz bassist of his generation" and praised him for "the extraordinarily fluid technique, sumptuous tone and innovative methods he brought to his instrument."
Newman Taylor Baker is a jazz drummer and a washboard player.
Jim Nolet is an American jazz violinist, artist, performer, and educator known internationally as a composer/improviser in world and jazz idioms. He has a particular interest in the music of Brazil. He has performed in the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan, and Latin America.
Lenny Seidman is a tabla player, a composer, a co-director of the Spoken Hand Percussion Orchestra, and a World Music/Jazz curator at the Painted Bride Art Center in Philadelphia.
Diane Marie Paulus is an American theater and opera director who is currently the Terrie and Bradley Bloom Artistic Director of the American Repertory Theater at Harvard University. Paulus was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for her revivals of Hair and The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess, and won the award in 2013 for her revival of Pippin.
Lucinda Childs is an American postmodern dancer and choreographer. Her compositions are known for their minimalistic movements yet complex transitions. Childs is most famous for being able to turn the slightest movements into intricate choreography. Through her use of patterns, repetition, dialect, and technology, she has created a unique style of choreography that embraces experimentation and transdisciplinarity.
Hélène Breschand is a French harpist, composer and improviser. Breschand leads a career both as a solo artist as well as in ensemble work, playing both a contemporary repertoire and premiering new works as much as she plays improvised music and musical theater. She is a musician who plays on the verge of several genres ranging from contemporary music to jazz. She plays both written and improvised music.
In for a Penny, In for a Pound is an album composed by Henry Threadgill for his jazz quintet Zooid, featuring Jose Davila, Liberty Ellman, Christopher Hoffman, and Elliot Humberto Kavee. It was released by Pi Recordings and was awarded the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Pyeng Dubra Threadgill is an American blues, jazz and soul blues singer, songwriter and record producer. Her father is the bandleader and composer, Henry Threadgill, and her mother is Christina Jones, a dancer and choreographer. Threadgill has released three albums, beginning in 2004 with Sweet Home: Pyeng Threadgill Sings Robert Johnson.