Renée Murphy
Harpist Renée Murphy is the First Prize laureate of competitions including the 30th Soka-Nippon International Harp Competition (Japan) and the Advanced Division of the American Harp Society’s 24th National Competition. She is an undergraduate student at The Juilliard School where she studies under Professor Nancy Allen, Principal Harpist of the New York Philharmonic. She is a recipient of the Kovner Fellowship at Juilliard.
Renée is committed to expanding the harp repertoire and has a particular interest in representing music reflecting her Japanese and African American heritage. A new recording titled Simple Gifts will be released on Centaur Records later this year, featuring the premiere recording of Ryota Ishikawa’s Songs Across the Sea: Four Songs from Japan and America (2019) for two saxophones and harp. Renée will also be premiering Ishikawa’s Reaching for the Drinking Gourd and Stars for solo harp at the Consulate General of Japan in New York in June 2023.
As a featured guest recitalist, Renée has performed on international stages including the Focus on Youth International Concert Series of the 13th World Harp Congress (Hong Kong), the 60th Soka-Nippon International Music Festival (Japan), the Stars of Tomorrow International Concert Series of the 9th and 11th USA International Harp Competitions, the American Harp Society’s 44th National Conference, the Lyric Chamber Music Society Concert Series in New York, and as guest soloist with the Carmel and Bloomington (Indiana) Symphony Orchestras. Renée is an alumna of the Bowdoin International Music Festival and the Illinois Summer Harp Class, where she presented recitals for six years. She will be attending the Aspen Music Festival and School this summer as the recipient of the Aspen Chamber Symphony Harp Fellowship. Renée has performed with the Juilliard Orchestra, New World Symphony, Chamber Orchestra of New York, and Bronx Arts Ensemble under such conductors as Sir Antonio Pappano, Joseph Colaneri, and David Robertson. She has been featured in Harp Column Magazine and the World Harp Congress Newsletter; she has contributed to the Juilliard Journal and The Wolf Interval: A Multimodal Journal of Student Work at Juilliard.
Renée’s previous teachers include Professor Florence Sitruk, Professor Elżbieta Szmyt, and Dr. Alicia Duncan McQuay, and she has performed in masterclasses of harpists including Susann McDonald, Sivan Magen, Elizabeth Hainen, Ann Yeung, Mariko Anraku, Julia Rovinsky, and June Han. In addition, Renée has had extensive chamber music coaching with flutist Carol Wincenc.
A native of Indiana, she has collaborated with her large, musical family in performances and projects across the U.S. and abroad in Japan. Renée currently lives in New York City.