Ryan Murphy

Ryan T. Murphy (born 1971), a native of Newtown, Connecticut, has been the associate music director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir since 27 March 2009, working with music director Mack Wilberg. He is an alumni of Brigham Young University (BYU) where he earned bachelor’s (1997) and master’s degrees (2002). While he was a student at BYU he served as an assistant to then BYU professor Wilburg. He received a doctorate in choral conducting from Boston University in 2009 which open the doors for opportunities to conduct in several local venues.

Murphy has a diverse musical background. By the age of 5 he was playing the piano. He was a member of a boys’ choir, conducted his high school choir, played the role of Danny Zuko in “Grease,” and was a keyboardist for the band The Current which performed Led Zeppelin covers. In an interview for the Taunton Daily Gazette, he commented:

I was the music director at St. Malachy Parish in Burlington. I taught and had a choir at Walnut Hill School [for the Performing Arts] in Natick, and I did two choirs for New England Conservatory Preparatory School.

Murphy has also been music director at the Tuacahn Amphitheatre and Center for the Arts and the Sundance Institute in Provo. Among his responsibilities are assisting Mack Wilberg with the Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square in rehearsals, concerts, tours, and the weekly broadcast of Music and the Spoken Word. He also helps to produce recording sessions (they just finished a recording of Handel’s “Messiah”), and serves as the conductor of the Temple Square Chorale, the preparatory ensemble for new singers in Choir service. When Murphy isn’t working with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, he teams up with his wife, Jennifer, and directs the choir at a local elementary school.

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