Murray, Michael
Murray, Michael
Murray, Michael, American organist; b. Kokomo, Ind., March 19, 1943. He studied with Dorothy Cleveland Hopkins in Kokomo (1958–59), Mallory Bransford in Indianapolis (1959–61), Haskell Thomson at Oberlin (Ohio) Coll. (1961; 1965), and Marcel Dupré in Paris (1961–64). He served as organist (1967–80) and music director (1970–80) at Cleveland Heights Christian Church. He formally launched his career as a concert artist with a series of the complete organ works of J.S. Bach in Cleveland (1968–69). He made his European debut in Leiden, the Netherlands, in 1972. Thereafter he regularly toured the U.S. and Europe, making his N.Y. debut at St. James Episcopal Church in 1986. He was a contributor of articles to the journals Diapason and American Organist. Murray publ. Marcel Dupré: The Work of a Master (Boston, 1985), Albert Schweitzer, Musician (Aldershot, 1994), and French Masters of the Organ: Saint-Saëns, Franck, Widor, Vierne, Dupré, Langlais, Messiaen (New Haven, 1998).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire