Thomas Murray to Retire

September 6, 2018

The Institute of Sacred Music announces the retirement of Prof. Thomas Murray, professor in the practice of organ and Yale University Organist, effective at the end of the 2018–19 academic year.

A graduate of Occidental College, Thomas Murray joined the faculties of the School of Music and Institute of Sacred Music in 1981 after an eight-year tenure as organist and choirmaster at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Boston.

Since coming to Yale, Prof. Murray has been involved at various times in the Marquand Chapel music program, and has served as organist and choir director at Battell Chapel; throughout his years at Yale he has taught courses in organ literature and church music. For thirty-seven years, he has been teaching graduate organ majors who have gone on from Yale to leading positions in the academy, in churches and cathedrals, and in the field of performance throughout the world.

His own performing career has taken him to all parts of Europe and to Japan, Australia, and Argentina. He has appeared as a soloist with the Pittsburgh, Houston, Milwaukee, and New Haven Symphony Orchestras, the National Chamber Orchestra in Washington, D.C., and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra during its tour of Finland in 1996. The American Guild of Organists named him International Performer of the Year in 1986. In 2003, he received a diploma honoris causa as a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists in England, and in 2007 the Yale School of Music awarded him the Gustave Stoeckel Award for excellence in teaching. He is also the recipient of an honorary fellowship from the Royal Canadian College of Organists. 

In the year to come, we look forward to celebrating the many aspects of his profound legacy at Yale and his indelible impact on the organ world.