Simon Murphy

Founding Director and Conductor of The New Dutch Academy

Educated by the leading lights of the Dutch early music movement, the young Australian/Dutch conductor and viola player Simon Murphy (Sydney, 1973) gained his initial experience performing in the leading Dutch and European period instrument ensembles such as the Orchestra of the 18th Century, and was also the Viola player of The Amsterdam String Quartet, before going on to establish The New Dutch Academy (NDA). Under Murphy's leadership, the NDA has toured around the world performing at major venues and festivals, and has attracted awards and much praise from both the media and musical establishment for its fresh and vibrant approach to early music repertoire, performance and presentation.

Murphy is known for his energetic and infectiously enthusiastic approach to music making, as well as for his multidisciplinary projects and programmes, giving new insights into the music, arts and culture of the 18th century. As a researcher, programmer and conductor, he has done much in reviving and promoting previously ignored symphonic music, especially from the mid 18th century musical centres of Mannheim and the Netherlands, championing this repertoire through creating and conducting special programmes in performances and broadcasts in the Netherlands and, internationally, at the major European festivals. Murphy has also been recently successful in completing the reconstruction of Bach’s own cello – known as the Violoncello Piccolo or Viola Pomposa – an instrument upon which he also regularly performs as a soloist.

Murphy obtained his undergraduate degree in Fine Arts, Musicology and Performance at the University of Sydney, before moving to the Netherlands where he studied and worked with the likes of Alda Stuurop, Gustav Leonhardt and Frans Brüggen.

As a conductor and chamber soloist, Murphy has performed across Europe, America, Asia and Australia. His work is documented on more than 50 CDs. He regularly co-operates with European radio and television for live concert broadcasts and documentaries, working with, amongst others, AVRO, NPS, RNW, Hessischer Rundfunk, MDR, Radio Deutschland and RAI as well as with the EBU for world-wide live simulcasts. Murphy has directed concert performances at the major concert halls at home in the Netherlands (including the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, De Doelen Rotterdam and Vredenburg Utrecht), and, internationally, at the major European music festivals, including at the Festivals of Amsterdam, Utrecht, The Hague, Brussels, Gent, Brühl, Halle, Weimar, Potsdam and Rome.

Recent conducting concert highlights have included performances of Handel’s Water Music at the Händel Festspiele in the composer’s birth city of Halle, concerts of symphonies by Haydn and his Dutch contemporaries at the UNESCO world heritage site Schloss Brühl, performances of Corelli Concerti Grossi in the Bernini hall in the presidential Palazzo Quirinale in Rome, performances of Mozart Symphonies as part of the Holland Festival of Early Music, and concerts of symphonies of Beethoven and Wranitzky with live broadcasts from De Doelen Rotterdam on European Radio.