Something Old, Something New

04.01.09
Tai Murray
Muso Life Magazine

As the unmistakable sounds of Telemann's Fantasie No. 12 for solo violin open the lunchtime recital, the young instrumentalist onstage is mesmerizing all in her path. Well, all except the baby in the front row who is beginning to wail. And there's a distinct rustling of sweets and crisps in the aisles behind as some audience members take the mealtime theme a bit too literally.

But Tai Murray is a professional, and such disruptions do little to distract from her performance. She brings the Telemann to a close, her phrasing and intonation as elegant as her floor-length black dress. It shimmers with every movement, sparkling under the fairy lights in Manchester's Bridgewater Hall. The concert venue's audience breaks into applause, and Murray is joined on stage by pianist Gilles Vonsattel to perform Janacek's Violin Sonata.

The restless dialogue that ensues between piano and violin is executed to perfection, and as the duo move from impassioned string motifs to agitated  piano figures it is obvious that Murray is a girl who's on top of her game. Her ability to switch from plaintive baroque to 20th-century extended techniques in an instant reflects her attention to detail in performances: ‘I'm actually fascinated with putting together recital programmes,' says Murray as we chat in her dressing room after the concert. ‘It's what makes all the pieces interesting- they're fabulous by themselves of course- but it brings out different characters and different personalities when you put certain pieces back to back.'

For her northern England debut Murray followed Telemann and Janacek with Clara Schumann and Stravinsky. But the rising star won't be limited by repertoire: ‘I play music that is more contemporary than even the Janacek. I just performed a sonata that Ralph Shapey composed in 1998, but I also like earlier music like Corelli- it goes across the board.

‘I am working on a concerto commission by Michael Gandolfi. He wrote an amazing piece called The Garden of Cosmic Speculation based on a sculpture garden in Scotland (by Charles Jencks) and it's incredible.'

Murray may find it difficult to schedule the time to practice such new works- the violinist is currently commuting across the pond regularly for gigs in the US and the UK, the latter as part of her role as a BBC New Generation Artist (NGA). The scheme is run by BBC Radio 3- the station offers 14 up-and-coming British and international artists support for two years. The lucky few make several appearances with the BBC orchestras, undertake special studio recordings for Radio 3 and perform at the UK's largest classical festival: the Proms.

‘I got to play the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the BBC Concert Orchestra last week, which I've always wanted to do,' says Murray of her latest duties as a NGA. But this is just the start of her wish list: ‘I also like the Stravinsky Concerto and then there's just so many sonatas, like the Janacek for example. At some point I know I want to sink my teeth into some Beethoven too but I only have a year and a half left so we'll see!'

The scheme means Murray spends a lot of time touring, which is something she doesn't seem to mind: ‘I love travelling. Last week I was with the orchestra in Wattford (near London) and then I went back (to the US) for two days, and then I'm back here!'

Home for Murray is now New Jersey, although she admits her apartment is ‘like a hotel room sometimes'. She lived in Indiana for most of her life before she was drawn to the bright lights of New York. Murray, who is now 26, decided she wanted to be a violinist early on- at the tender age of two in fact.

‘I am not specifically sure what drew me to the violin,' she says . ‘My mother (who was a single mum; I have five siblings and she raised all six of us by herself) tells me that somewhere around the age of two I said, "Mummy, I want to play the violin." She said, "Oh that's really cute," thinking that it was a two-year-old's idea of what might be fun, but I was actually serious. I kept badgering her for the next few years until eventually, shortly before the age of five, I got a violin.

‘It was specifically a violin, as opposed to just music so I must have heard someone somewhere, maybe on television or something like that, and I was all about it, right from the beginning.'

Luckily for Murray, her mother quickly realized this wasn't a fleeting interest. ‘My entire family has been unbelievably supportive throughout this journey- and it has been a journey, with many hills and valleys,' laughs Murray, raising her hand to emphasize the point and flashing a glint of a bright pink cocktail ring.

‘But the great thing about my mother is that her path of life has always been to work with children to teach reading or phonics- she's currently a public school teacher but she would always teach privately, so when I showed an interest in music she realized that it had to be nurtured.

‘I feel very lucky about that because my life could have been so different. I was adopted at six months and just the idea that I ended up with someone who was able to encourage what I wanted to do is really special,' she adds.

Murray began to take lessons at Chicago's Sherwood Conservatory of Music. By the age of eight, her family moved to Bloomington in Indiana, and she was already showing great promise. In time, following a stint at the University of Indiana, Murray enrolled in a three-year program at New York's Juilliard School of Music to study under Joel Smirnoff.

‘I got to New York and I was like, "New York!" but at the same time I thought, "I'm in my early 20s and this is the time when I need to settle everything",' explains Murray.

‘I love Indy, I got my main basic training there as a young person, but at Juilliard it was different. Indiana's sort of in the middle of the United States and in the middle of nowhere- it's a hidden treasure but it's not very driven in terms of its surroundings. When you get to New York it's New York- you have the Lincoln Center and the Met and the New York Phil and you just realize what level everything is on and the importance of having a strong sense of self. I realized that this was the time I had to spend developing, as everyone's professional life is so hectic. It wasn't worth it to waste that time.'

Self-awareness and personal development are things that Murray has a strong understanding of. At the end of her Bridgewater Hall appearance she curtseys, thanks the audience, and offers up the first movement of the Janacek sonata as an encore, promising: ‘to play it better this time'. She is self-deprecating, yet confident in her own abilities- a combination of characteristics that filter into her performance.

Although Murray's focus has always been on bettering her musical self, she admits that she was tempted in to the Big Apple's social scene: ‘Don't get me wrong, I did party in New York! Once, when I was a starving artist, Juilliard is on 66th Street or something like that and I had managed to stay up way too late and I was completely broke. At the time I lived on 174th Street and I started walking home at one in the morning and it took me until three- two hours to walk all the way!

‘It wasn't the smartest thing to walk through Manhattan in the middle of the night by myself. I was on the phone going "I'm almost home, just half an hour to go!" but it was so New York, you know?'

The odd late night out aside, Murray remained focus at Juilliard, graduating in 2004. There's affection in her voice as she speaks of her time at the conservatoire, and an appreciation of her contemporaries. She spies the previous issue of Muso peeking from under my bag and lets out a squeal: ‘Oh, is that Cameron (Carpenter)? I used to go to school with him!'

Murray- despite her love of traditional works- is keen to push the boundaries when it comes to the practicalities of her instrument. Although she played ‘all the Italians: Strads, Guadagninis and whatever else' when she was at college, her current violin of choice was made in ,er, 2007.

‘I'm playing a modern instrument, made by Mario Miralles,' she explains. ‘He's a luthier of Argentinian descent I believe, but he lives just outside of Los Angeles. When I finished school this wonderful doctor let me borrow an instrument from Mario and I used it for a year and really liked it. Somewhere in the middle of that Mario heard me play and we talked about the possibility of him making one for me. Eight months later I had one.'

The bold decision paid off, but Murray knew she was taking a risk choosing a brand new violin: ‘First off, straight off the block, you don't know what you're getting. I could've thought "I hate this" but fortunately it has so much depth and color, and it's malleable,' she reveals. ‘It is a new instrument so over the first year it was changing a lot- every day almost. But then it was every two days and every three days, and now it's every two weeks I feel a difference.

‘I feel really special that somehow I'm starting this violin out. I told someone not too long ago that I'm really disappointed that I won't be able to play it in 150 years, as I know that's when it will really get to its place as an amazing instrument.'

Thankfully, we won't have to wait that long before Murray reaches her place as an amazing instrumentalist. She's just joined the roster of Opus 3- an independent artist management firm that looks after the likes of James Ehnes, Emmanuel Pahud and Jonathan Biss- and is looking forward to someone else trawling the web for cheap flights. ‘I'm lucky to have gotten awesome management but it also means that I can just have the ideas and sort of give them to someone to do the schedule,' smiles Murray. ‘Up to this point I've been multi-tasking as the instrumentalist and also trying to take care of the business side of stuff, which I respect is a full-time job- I am happy for someone else to do that so I can do the job I really want to, which is to play.'

So far that playing has taken in the stages of Berlin's Konzerthaus, Copenhagen's Tivoli Concert Hall, and New York's Carnegie Hall to name a few.

This season sees Murray return to the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and debut with the BBC Scottish Symphony, as well as having engagements with the Chicago, St. Louis and Baltimore symphony orchestras. She's also coming back to the UK in May for another BBC Radio 3 recital at Birmingham's Town Hall.

With so much going on, it's important for Murray to find other outlets. Like many musicians, she finds it difficult to relax listening to classical music because her ‘brain goes into concentration mode', choosing ‘lots of pop music' instead. ‘I listen to Maroon 5 all the time!' she giggles. ‘And I love Stevie Wonder, Beyonce and Three Days Grace- it goes really across the board. When I'm trying to relax it's hardly ever classical, it can be Justin Timberlake or whatever!'

As well as taking some well-earned R&R with a sneaky helping of sugary pop, Murray is also a keen dancer in her space time- although she is quick to point out that her interest is ‘strictly amateur'. I tell her that her toned physique (her arms could rival those of any tennis pin-up) suggests otherwise and she laughs: ‘Oh no, I never go to the gym, it must be all the playing.' Cue girls everywhere substituting free weights for violins.

‘I do love to dance- I like club dancing and ballroom- and to watch modern and ballet,' says Murray. ‘I definitely feel there are very tangible connections between all these things, and as a musician I can learn from the different art forms.

‘One of the great experiences I had in New York was when someone called me at the last minute to play a tour with the Mark Morris Dance Group. We did the Dido and Aeneas that he choreographed years ago and he conducted the orchestra. He's a dancer so while all of his physical movements may not have been technically right, as a conductor he conveyed so much. I felt like I learned a lot working with dancers and seeing their reaction to our music and how we reacted to their movements.'

Elsewhere, Murray keeps her finger in the chamber music pie. ‘I'm playing a string trio concert, which I'm real excited about,' says Murray, now dressed down in her backstage outfit of jeans and a blue sweater. ‘The two pieces are Beethoven's C minor String Trio, which is one of the staples of the chamber music repertoire, but then we're playing a piece by Sofia Gubaidulina- a female contemporary who lives in New York now- and this piece is just so raw...'

Her mobile rings mid-sentence and she cancels the call without hesitation: ‘I'm making noise, I'm so sorry! Anyway, we've already started rehearsing and we're having a great time putting it together. It's great putting it with the Beethoven because we're relatively young, the three of us, and it's a piece that we've all played before but we've also heard- it's been a part of our musical psyche. But the Gubaidulina on the other hand is something we're discovering anew for ourselves.'

Murray often holds reading parties with friends to maintain the close connection that small ensemble work brings. ‘I feel like there was a division at some point in the 20th century between orchestral musicians, soloists and chamber musicians,' she explains. ‘As we go into the 21st century, people start to morph into all those things to a certain extent. There are more and more people performing Sibelius one day, then a Schubert cello quintet the next. It's important to realize that there are so many connections between these different types of music and composers- if you lose sight of that you become an island set off from the rest of music.'

There's little chance that Murray will be marooned- with an appetite for repertoire new and old, a modern instrument and an open mind, she's enjoying the musical past with her eyes focused firmly on the future.

 -Claire Jackson