Sarah Murphy is a flautist, composer and music facilitator based in Northern Ireland who studied at the Royal College of Music as a junior exhibitioner and then at Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Well known for her love of music from different cultures Sarah regularly juxtaposes different genre and styles in her compositions. Sarah’s composition ‘Taiko Love’ was commissioned by Foyle O-Bon Japanese Festival in 2017, funded by Arts Council NI and is a blend of Irish and Japanese traditional music styles. The Arts Council NI subsequently awarded Sarah a Support for Individual Artist award under Lottery funding to attend a two week music residency in Japan, an experience she has drawn from to complete a sequel composition ‘The Swan and The Crane’ which was premiered at Foyle O-Bon Festival 2018.
As a performer Sarah has a varied career playing classical flute as a chamber musician and freelance orchestral flautist and in addition has played a variety of ethnic flutes as part of contemporary and world music groups. Some of Sarah’s career highlights include Festive Flutes performance at the Canadian flute convention in Toronto, performing all flutes on the award winning children’s animation Whistleless, sell out performances with Juan Martin at London’s Southbank Centre and National Concert Hall Dublin, and performing with Orbestra at the Istanbul International Festival.
Sarah has a small private flute teaching practise in Derry Northern Ireland with local students and older diploma students travelling widely to study with her. In addition she teaches flute students at the University of Ulster and teaches annually on the Flutes in Tuscany summer academy.
In 2010 Sarah co-founded Wall2Wall Music, a music company which designs and delivers creative music workshops based around collaborative composition and performance. As artistic director Sarah has led a wide range of collaborative projects across Ireland and the Uk bringing people of all ages and abilities together with professional musicians to create new and original music. This has included working on Illuminate in Donegal with North 55 inspired by stories from Inishtrahull island off Malin Head; Stroke Odyssey’s in Derry and London with Rosetta Life working with 14-85 year olds from the stroke community; At Sixes and Sevens with 54 young musicians 14-19 years old in partnership with Barbican Creative Learning, the Verbal Arts Centre and the London Symphony Orchestra during the City of Culture 2013; and the Soundwaves project for Donegal Music Education, Music Generation Ireland and Arts Council of Ireland partnership which explores the skills of a 21st Century musician with young musicians.
Sarah also works with Arts Council Ireland as a Creative Associate Artist for their Creative Schools programme
Supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the Department for Communities
