Genevieve Murphy

Anxiety, sense of perspective and humour

1 December 2022

The Scottish-born composer and performer Genevieve Murphy is not afraid to be open about herself, albeit always with a certain distance. On 31 May 2024, she will give the Muziekgebouw audience a glimpse into her world in the solo performance At The Spot Where I Find Myself. Her message? “Be at peace with who and what you are.”

Take a traditional Scottish storyteller, preferably one sitting in a cosy pub, mix that with influences from British artist Martin Creed, American performance artist Laurie Anderson, Scottish comedian Billy Connolly, and David Byrne, former frontman of Talking Heads, add some personal experiences and sense of perspective, and there is a good chance you will end up with someone similar to Genevieve Murphy.

The composer, performer and spoken-word artist was born in 1988, obtained her master’s degree in composition in The Hague in 2013 and has resided in the Netherlands ever since. With her colourful and diverse work, she is a welcome guest in Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ. As early as 2015, the Muziekgebouw was the stage for her impressive five-part work F.I.N.E. during an Evening of Today. And recently she delivered another impressive performance in Asko|Schönberg’s Words & Music programme with I Don’t Want To Be An Individual All On My Own. She describes herself as an interdisciplinary artist and, in works like Something In This Universe, Calm In An Agitated World and Squeeze Machine, she mixes Scottish folk music, pop, contemporary classical, poetry, video and, above all, humour to get her message across, like a modern Joseph Haydn.

^{photo: Isabelle Renate la Poutré}

Personal experiences
On 4 January, Murphy will perform in the Muziekgebouw with At The Spot Where I Find Myself, a production by Rizoom, the platform for young music makers that the Muziekgebouw cofounded. A production that also “explores the subject of privacy and the way in which we identify with specific spaces that help us to release emotions”, according to the official description. Murphy herself prefers to call the performance that features a lot of spoken word, electronic music, visual art, and costumes by Belgian designer Tom van der Borght, a concert. “A spoken-word concert”, she clarifies. “It’s more like poetry accompanied by a soundscape of electronic music. It’s about the word and the music.”

Cocoon full of emotions
Ultimately, the work is an assemblage of personal experiences. “It is like an autobiography that in a dream is turned into a single story. The essence of the work stems from experiences that have made me who I am, with all my good and bad sides. In the performance, I am in an apartment. That apartment is my identity, a personal space that absorbs all my emotions. What I want to tell with At The Spot Where I Find Myself: be at peace with who and what you are and with everything that has happened in your life. It has shaped you, so embrace it.”

She envisioned the show with costumes, but does not consider herself a designer. So she enlisted the help of Van der Borght. “I don’t think in costumes and needed someone who could translate my images into something wearable on stage. That worked out well. For instance, when I need ‘protection’ in the play, I am in a kind of cocoon. This way, the costumes too are images that refer to an emotion.”

My style, my language
She still asks herself regularly why she took that leap, stepping away from composing to face the crowd head-on. “When I was still studying piano and thinking of becoming a pianist, I was very shy behind the grand piano. Through my collaboration with artist Martin Creed, I have become very aware of my physical presence and how it can play a role in my work. The pieces I create are my style, my language. If the work lends itself to it, I need to assume responsibility and perform it myself.”

The question of how she integrates herself into her work has been occupying her mind for about five years now. “I love telling stories. Comedians like Billy Connolly, a true storyteller, inspire me. I wouldn’t feel comfortable to present myself as a stand-up comedian, but playing a role in my own work as a musician and performer is doable.”

^{Photo: Isabelle Renate la Poutré}

My style, my language
She still asks herself regularly why she took that leap, stepping away from composing to face the crowd head-on. “When I was still studying piano and thinking of becoming a pianist, I was very shy behind the grand piano. Through my collaboration with artist Martin Creed, I have become very aware of my physical presence and how it can play a role in my work. The pieces I create are my style, my language. If the work lends itself to it, I need to assume responsibility and perform it myself.”

The question of how she integrates herself into her work has been occupying her mind for about five years now. “I love telling stories. Comedians like Billy Connolly, a true storyteller, inspire me. I wouldn’t feel comfortable to present myself as a stand-up comedian, but playing a role in my own work as a musician and performer is doable.”

No therapy
Fear has played a major role in her work from the very beginning. The daughter of a visual artist and psychiatrist, she started composing because she once helped her mother with music for an art project. “From the moment I was struggling with various anxieties and even developed an eating disorder, my mother suggested channelling my emotions and fears through composing. That’s what I have been doing ever since. That’s how F.I.N.E. (Fucked Insecure Neurotic Exhausted), written in 2015, came about - in a period when I was in bad shape.”

Yet her mood of the moment is never evident in her works. “Composing is not a form of therapy, but rather looking at your own emotions from a distance. “I am not interested in the pain itself, but in communicating the emotion and providing a perspective. When I go through an experience, I ask myself how I can make that experience, that fear, relevant and relatable for others. Humour helps a lot with that. It’s an important aspect of my work and the best way to push through difficulties. Humour helps put problems into perspective, to share them with those around you and hopefully change the world a little bit.”

At The Spot Where I Find Myself is a production of Rizoom, platform for young music makers, a collaboration of Asko|Schönberg, De Doelen, Gaudeamus Festival, Intro in Situ, Korzo, Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ, and November Music. In partnership with Nicole Beutler Projects.

This is a translation of the original Dutch text by Paul Janssen. This article was previously published in Vriendenmagazine DichtbIJ.

Concert