b. 1995 (human #105,485,752,487)
Rory Murphy is an Irish composer and music theorist.
His work has a primary focus on notation, in particular on experimental and invented notation, dealing with the phenomenology of performance and interpretation and often operating through multi-sensory and three-dimensional approaches in order to create a more embodied interaction for the performer.
His most recent project is Cneas, a notation-installation for alto flute which was premiered by Sara Di Costanzo in Assisi in September 2025, and developed there while artist-in-residence at Arte Studio Ginestrelle. This piece marks the true beginning of a practice of "somatosensory notation", or notation which utilises the performer's sense of touch exclusively.
Other recent projects include aspects, a set of seven preludes for Andrew McPherson's Magnetic Resonator Piano for which he received an Agility Award from Arts Council Ireland in 2024, and the creation of a new compositional tool for the generation and progression of hexadic harmonic structures (which can be heard in works such as The Children of Lir and frequency illusion), for which he also received an Agility Award in 2023. He has twice received grants from Tónskáldasjóður RÚV og STEFs (RÚV and STEF Composer's Fund, Iceland), for the initial work on aspects (2023) and for the project Hilling, a notation-installation in textiles (2022).
He received his M.Mus. in Composition from Iceland University of the Arts (2023) and B.A. in Music from Trinity College Dublin (2018, first class honours), and completed an Erasmus Graduate Traineeship in Artistic Research at Orpheus Institute in Ghent, Belgium (2024).
His music has been performed publicly in Belgium, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, and Northern Ireland by Sara Di Costanzo, Meliora Quartet, Xenia Pestova Bennett, Quatuor Flume, Caput Ensemble, Edda Óskarsdóttir, Messíana Kristinsdóttir, and Ensemble Adapter with John McCowen.