Murphy McCaleb is a senior lecturer of music at York St John University. He received his doctorate in ensemble performance studies from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire after studying trombone performance and chamber music at the University of Alaska and the University of Michigan. As a bass trombonist and pianist, Murphy engages in a wide range of music including classical, jazz, rock, folk, pop, electronic and experimental and has performed in two Glastonbury Festivals as part of the New York Brass Band. He has recorded on multiple albums, most notably Mythical and Angry, a funk collaboration with progressive rock drummer Andy Edwards and Flora Greysteel’s From the Ground. His background in musical direction includes Lumen, an installation at the Illuminating York festival in 2016, and a four-star reviewed run of Gavin Bryars’ Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2019. His research on musical ensembles has been published in several books including Embodied Knowledge in Ensemble Performance, Together in Music and The Chamber Musician in the Twenty-First Century.
