Alexander D. Murray

Alexander Murray is a Professor Emeritus of Flute at the University of Illinois School of Music. Formerly principal flute with Covent Garden Opera and the London Symphony, he has taught at the Royal College, Royal Academy, and Royal NorthernCollege in England, the Royal Dutch Conservatory, Michigan State University, and the National Music Camp at Interlochen. He has recorded extensively with the London Symphony Orchestra and made solo albums for Pandora Records. Since 1959, Mr.Murray has designed flutes made by Albert Cooper and Jack Moore with advice from physicists Arthur Benade, John Coltman and Ronald Laszewski. (See The Development of the Modern Flute.) In cooperation with physicist Ronald Laszewski, he has continued to investigate the acoustics of the flute including Renaissance and Baroque instruments on which he performs regularly. The most recent experimental flute (1998) is a quarter-tone instrument, pitched a tone lower than normal (A=392). AlexMurray is Winner of First Prize, Paris Conservatoire and a founder-director of the National Flute Association. He taught and performed annually at the Oxford Flute Week at Queen’s College and is principal flute in the Sinfonia da Camera. ProfessorMurray was the recipient of the 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Flute Associatiom.

With his wife Joan, Alex Murray was Co-Director of the Urbana Center for the Alexander Technique and trained over 100Alexander teachers, including several flutists. The Murrays spent nine years working with Walter Carrington, who was F.M. Alexander’s principal assistant. They completed their teacher training in the Alexander Technique with Walter Carrington in theearly 1960s. The Murrays worked with many first generation teachers, including: Walter Carrington, Frank Pierce and HelenJones, Patrick Macdonald, Majorie Barstow, Charles Neil, John Skinner, Peter Scott, Tony Spawforth, Richard and ElizabethWalker, Lulie Westfelt, Kitty Wielopolska, and Peggy Williams. In collaboration with renowned anthropologist and anatomistRaymond Dart, Alex and Joan Murray have created a developmental approach to learning and teaching the AlexanderTechnique. Alex Murray is the editor of Skill and Poise, a collection of Raymond Dart’s papers. He is also the editor of a series of booklets on the Alexander Technique and philosopher John Dewey. The Murrays are members of the Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique. Professor Murray delivered the F.M. Alexander Memorial Lecture, “John Dewey and F. M. Alexander: 36Years of Friendship” before the Society in 1983.