William A. Murphy, is a third-year doctoral student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Vocal Coaching and Accompanying.  He was awarded a Teaching Assistantship with the Lyric Theatre @ Illinois.  While at UIUC, he has served as a conductor for Under the Stars, pianist and conductor for opera scenes, orchestra pianist for Black Square (Demutsky), and continuo organist for L'Orfeo (Monteverdi).  This fall, he will be performing as orchestra pianist for Under the Stars and he will be the Assistant Conductor for Anastasia (Flaherty/Ahrens). 

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During the Spring 2025 Semester, he participated in an international performance tour to Costa Rica in conjunction with the Centro Cultural Costarricense-Norteamericano and the U.S. Embassy.  Also, he was a featured performer with the Meredith Chamber Singers with a tour to Chicago at Holy Name Cathedral performing the Vierne Messe Solennelle (Double Organ Mass). In the Summer of 2025, he served as pianist for the Illinois Summer Youth Music (ISYM) Junior Choir and Music Theatre workshops. 

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His first two recitals have included English and French works, most notably the Barber Knoxville: Summer of 1915 and the Debussy L'enfant Prodigue. His second recital can be found here.

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Before moving to Urbana-Champaign, he served as the Staff Accompanist at Morehead State University.  He gave several performances with MSU faculty as a guest artist with performances at Berry College, Rome, GA, the University of Louisville and Marshall University in Huntington, WV.  On campus performances included many faculty and degree recitals and a World Premiere performance of Carter Pann's "Giantess" for Flute and Piano (2018). Additional performances have been heard at KMEA (2017), North American Saxophone Alliance (2018), Flute Society of Kentucky (2019 and 2023), ITF  (2019) and Falcone International Tuba Euphonium Festival (2021).  He can also be heard as a performer on the debut album "Bootleg" with bass trombonist Russ Zokaites (Centaur Records 2020).  Other artist collaborations include soprano Dr. Marlayna Maynard (Nashville), soprano Alexandra LoBianco (Chicago), clarinetist Rob Patterson (Boston), and several choral clinicians. 

 

Previous to his position at MSU, he was an adjunct faculty member at Marshall University starting in January 2013 that involved many roles of education and collaboration; including teaching private applied voice, theory and aural skills, class piano, directing the Choral Union, and pianist/coach for the Opera Workshop. 

Currently, he is the choirmaster at Emmanuel Memorial Episcopal Church in Champaign. For the previous thirteen years, he was the Organist at St. John's Episcopal Church in Huntington and in 2013, he received the Colleague Certificate from the American Guild of Organists.  In addition to this position, he was the pianist/organist for the West Virginia Symphony Chorus in Charleston for eight years, performing large choral works including Messiah (Handel), Ein Deutches Requiem (Brahms), The Ballad of William Sycamore (Stevens), and Weinachts-Oratorium (Bach) and most recently Requiem (Duruflé).  During the summer months, he has been employed for the WV Governor’s School for the Arts since 2021 working with the Vocal Arts students.  

He is a graduate of Marshall University (2012) with a Master of Arts in Performance (Piano).  He received a Bachelor's of Music in Voice Performance with Cum Laude honors from Morehead State University (2009).  He participated as a student and accompanist for the participants of the Kentucky Institute for International Studies (KIIS) program in Salzburg, Austria (Summers 2007 and 2009).  He is a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) and American Guild of Organists (AGO).