Performer Name: Julie Murphy

Show Description

An intimate solo performance by the singer Julie Murphy exploring the natural voice as a central and unifying instrument through folk song, art song, poetry and personal songwriting. Sung mainly acapella, with a few touches of shruti and fiddle, there are folk songs from Essex, Ceredigion, Kentucky, Galway, Sussex, The West Bank...“folk songs are like birds, they fly where they please and drop seeds where they go.” These songs weave in and out of poems by Thomas Hardy and A.E Houseman, set by Britten and Vaughan Williams, originally for male tenor voice which Julie sings in her natural voice. There are also her own settings of poems by Charles Causley. London born, Essex raised, Julie has travelled extensively with music, both solo and with fernhill, the experimental folk group she formed with her partner Ceri Rhys Matthews who she met at art school in Kent in 1979. Julie settled in Wales with Ceri, a native Welsh speaker, after college, learning the language and raising their children bilingually. They live in rural Carmarthenshire. Over the years she has collaborated and recorded with musicians from a broad range of genres including John Cale, Robert Plant, Danny Thompson, Kenya’s Ayub Ogada and the early music group Sinfonye. Her forty year artistic journey was recently marked by a limited edition double vinyl album called Retrospective www.juliemurphymusic.com "Julie Murphy is a towering talent both in traditional music and as a singer songwriter. She possesses a voice of stark, spectral beauty that recalls Shirley Collins and Sandy Denny. " Dafydd Goff THE GUARDIAN “Frankly, whatever musical path she chooses to tread will be magnificent. She’s just that good.” KLOF MAGAZINE "A songwriter of true compassion and insight" FATEA