Navona Records will release the album “Percipience,” featuring music composed by Missouri State University professor of music Dr. Michael Murray, on April 14. The album will be available as a CD, digital download, and streaming audio from Amazon, iTunes and Spotify, among others.
“Percipience” consists of four song cycles for different solo voices and instrumental combinations, using poetry of Thomas Hardy, William Blake, John Donne and the Bible. Murray’s inspiration for his music comes directly from that poetry.
Murray said once he finds the right poetry for a project, the composition of the music tends to progress easily. He is constantly looking for poetry that will work well for any music he writes and that appeals to him musically.
One song cycle, “Neutral Tones,” was featured on the 25-hour marathon program “Viva 21st Century” on WPRB radio in Princeton, New Jersey in late December. The program, a special edition of Marvin Rosen’s Classical Discoveries, connected with thousands of live listeners on the east coast.
“The Thomas Hardy poems used for “Neutral Tones” address the process of aging and how our perceptions of significant events in our lives change over time,” Murray said. “When looking back on memories of life and love from a mature perspective, those memories often take on a different color.”
The marathon is nationally recognized and the composer must have written the piece within the last four years. After each piece is submitted the producer selects which music will be aired during the live event.
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