{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/iiif/qn5z60cp4v/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Maurice Murphy oral history, 2002 April 16"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/008/original/peabody-institute.logo.large.horizontal.blue.cropped.png?1549570058","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":[" Aubrey Maurice Murphy was a pianist, organist, conductor, and vocal instructor. He studied at the Peabody Conservatory, where he earned a Bachelor of Music in 1961 and a Master of Music in 1963, becoming the first African American to receive a master's from Peabody. He served as organist for St. Mary's Episcopal Church, St. Peter Claver Church, and St. James Episcopal Church. He was accompanist for the Baltimore Choral Arts Society for many years. He served on the faculties of the Baltimore School for the Arts, Union College, and Coppin State College and was music director of the Bach Society. Interview by Elizabeth Schaaf.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe interview was recorded on multiple cassettes. Some content overlaps between cassettes. (Abstract)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":[" 2002-04-16 (created)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":[" Murphy, Aubrey Maurice, 1937-2015 (Interviewee)"," Schaaf, Elizabeth M. (Interviewer)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":[" English (Primary)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["audio/mp3"]}},{"label":{"en":["Publisher"]},"value":{"en":["Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["The collection is open for use. Contact peabodyarchives@lists.jhu.edu for more information."]}},{"label":{"en":["Source Metadata URI"]},"value":{"en":["https://aspace.library.jhu.edu/repositories/4/archival_objects/215382"]}}],"summary":{"en":[" Aubrey Maurice Murphy was a pianist, organist, conductor, and vocal instructor. He studied at the Peabody Conservatory, where he earned a Bachelor of Music in 1961 and a Master of Music in 1963, becoming the first African American to receive a master's from Peabody. He served as organist for St. Mary's Episcopal Church, St. Peter Claver Church, and St. James Episcopal Church. He was accompanist for the Baltimore Choral Arts Society for many years. He served on the faculties of the Baltimore School for the Arts, Union College, and Coppin State College and was music director of the Bach Society. Interview by Elizabeth Schaaf.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe interview was recorded on multiple cassettes. Some content overlaps between cassettes."]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["The collection is open for use. Contact peabodyarchives@lists.jhu.edu for more information."]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/008/original/peabody-institute.logo.large.horizontal.blue.cropped.png?1549570058","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/117/468/small/murphy_maurice_photoshop.jpg?1651083395","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 3 - pims0091_MurphyAM-1_01.mp3"]},"duration":3016.04571,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/117/468/small/murphy_maurice_photoshop.jpg?1651083395","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-peabody.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/117/468/original/pims0091_MurphyAM-1_01.mp3?1624270936","type":"Audio","format":"audio/mpeg","duration":3016.04571,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["MurphyM_1_OHMS_20220729 [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"ELIZABETH SCHAAF: You are from Washington?\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: Washington, D.C.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Would you like to tell me where you started out in Washington,\nand when you were born?\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: I was born on September 29, 1937. I can't believe that! So that\nmakes me sixty-four. I was born to two Seventh-day Adventist teachers, George\nWashington Murphy, who was born in 1905, '06. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=0.0,60.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"He changed the date in his last\nyear of his life. I don't know why. My mother, who was born in 1907, is Myrtle\nSarah Gates Murphy. My father was a musician. He taught me, I don't know, from\nthe time I was six or eight years of age.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: What was his instrument?\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: He was a choral conductor, actually. He was a pianist at my\nchurch -- the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which is now Dupont Park Seventh-day\nAdventist Church in Washington. That was a big part of our lives, that religion.\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=60.0,120.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"The church had a lot to do with my becoming a musician, along with my father's\npresence in the church as a choral conductor. I remember playing in Sabbath\nSchool. We were in a church that used hymnals. I didn't know about this, but\nthere are churches that don't use hymnals. I didn't know that. I learned that\nwhen my students would tell me about their upbringing. I remember having trouble\non Saturday mornings. Being Seventh-day Adventists we went to church on Saturdays.\n\nI was a pianist in Sabbath School. I started playing the piano when I was eight.\nAnd I had friends that found I had trouble playing in four sharps. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=120.0,180.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So any hymn\nwith four sharps in it, they would choose during song service, and then I'd have\nto get up for that particular hymn, and my father would have to replace me. And\nthen I discovered how to transpose, and then I learned how to play in all keys.\nBut it was really something.\n\nBut my father was instrumental in my early years. He kept telling me that if I\nwould just do what he said, that he would put me on the hill. Well, the hill to\nhim was the epitome of music, which was Howard University. So when I was\nthirteen, I went there to the junior department, which is like is prep school,\nand I was there for four years until my last year of high school when I left town.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: And what drew you to Peabody?\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=180.0,240.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Well, it's a long story. When I say I left town and went to a\nschool, I went to a place called Penn Yan in the Finger Lakes region of Western\nNew York. I was there for a year. I took French II there after having taken\nFrench I in Washington. I was in a Seventh-day Adventist School most of my life,\nand by eleventh grade I was in a public school, and then in the twelfth grade, I\nwanted to leave. My mother let me go and stay with friends in Western New York.\nI graduated in '55 from Penn Yan, New York. It was just a public school but it\nwas the hardest. I mean, I think I worked harder to get out of French II than I\nhave for any course that I've ever taken in my life.\n\nI went from there to Oakland College in Huntsville, Alabama, ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=240.0,300.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"and a very\nwonderful man, the dean of men, told me I should not be there -- that I should\ngo to his alma mater. Oakland College was a Black Seventh-day Adventist College.\nHe told me that I should go to Union College which was a White Seventh-day\nAdventist College in Lincoln, Nebraska.\n\nSo I went there for a year, and while I was there, I met a wonderful mentor\nnamed Neil Tilkins [phonetic], and he told me that I shouldn't be there.\n[Laughter] He said, you know, you shouldn't be here. You should be at the\nPeabody Conservatory. And I said, well, what is that? Now, I grew up in\nWashington, okay? He said, that's just where you should be, so you should just\ngo back home. So I went back to Washington after my second year of college, and\nthen I came over to Peabody.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=300.0,360.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I didn't realize what my status was, as far as being a Black person or anything\nlike that. I just knew that he said that's where I should go. So that's what I\ndid. I remember like it was yesterday driving over with my father on the night\nbefore my audition. And then the day of the audition, I auditioned for Reginald\nStewart, and he was very complimentary to me. I played a Chopin nocturne -- I\nthink in B Major -- a Brahms intermezzo, and a Mozart sonata, K. 333, B-flat. He\nthought I was very musical.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=360.0,420.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I remember a person who was a secretary in the office whose name was Frank\nHines, very fastidious man. I was so nervous. He came to me while I was waiting\nout in the hallway, and he said, \"Well, Mr. Smith, do you want a place to\npractice?\" And I said, \"Well, yes, I do.\" I went down to the room to practice,\nand when I sat down, I said, \"Oh, by the way, my name isn't Smith. My name is\nMaurice Murphy.\" He said, \"Well, you do want to practice, don't you?\" I said,\n\"Well, yes, I do.\" So that's how I got there.\n\nI remember a woman -- Virginia Carty was the dean -- and I remember going to her\nand I signed up for music education, and she gave me the schedule (or I got the\nschedule from some other person), and then, that night, I went back home to\nWashington. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=420.0,480.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"My former teacher, Neil Tilkins, and his friend, Patrick Hicks\n--Patrick Hicks a master's student who was commuting from Washington at the same\ntime I was commuting. In fact, he used to pick me up every day, and we would\ndrive over here, and then he would take me home every night. He was the first\nperson, actually, I heard sing the theme of the Bach B Minor [sings], and every\ntime I hear it, I think about Pat. Because you never forget those things.\n\nThey looked at my schedule and they said, well, where is the music? Because I\nwas taking music education, and there was dance, and there was this, that and\nthe other, but there was not enough music. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=480.0,540.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So they told me that I had to change\nand go to applied [music]. I went to the dean the next day, and she said that I\ncould. And so I did that. Then I went up to what was then the little canteen up\non the third floor, near the elevator, and one of the students in music\neducation came over to me and asked me, who did I think I was, changing from\nmusic education. I mean, she just attacked me.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Was that Mrs. Hunter?\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: No, this was a student. No, Mrs. Hunter -- I loved her. I mean\nyou had to love her. If you were in the elevator with her, you just wanted to\nhug her. She was a motherly kind of person. I'm glad you brought her name up.\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=540.0,600.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But this girl came to me and said, \"What do you think? Are you going to be a\nconcert pianist? Well, you're going to have to teach when you get out of here.\"\nI said, \"Well, I probably will, but I have to know something about music first\nand then I'll worry about the rest later.\"\n\nI just knew that that's what I had to do. So I did that. I took a chance and it\nworked. Now they feel that you should know as much about your specific area [as\nyou possibly can], and then you take the education courses. But back in those\ndays, it was a little bit different.\n\nShe [Mrs. Hunter] was a wonderful. I can see her -- that complexion, that face\n-- right now, just like I saw it yesterday. She was just like an aunt --\nwonderful person!\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Everyone always speaks of her in glowing terms.\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=600.0,660.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Really. Makes me want to shed a tear. I miss her actually.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Your major teacher was Julio Esteban?\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: Well, no. I had four. [Laughs] I worked with was Daniel\nEricourt, who had just come that year. You know, this is going to take a long\ntime. We're going to have to do this again. But anyway, Daniel Ericourt was my\nteacher. I mean, I was just on his schedule. We became real friendly. He was a\nwonderful person, and he was very respectful of the sound that I made on the\npiano. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=660.0,720.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I got to be enamored of the technical accomplishments of the students of\nMieczyslaw Münz. So I changed, and went to Mr. Münz my second year.\n\nWell, Mr. Münz had a way of outlining a method for you. He would give you six\nor eight pieces and he would say, now you will do these for your jury in May,\nand you just work on these. You'd have about two weeks on them. You'd practice\nthem, and the next week he would re-finger them all! Then you'd have to work\nthem up, and then when you played for him the next time, they were to be\nmemorized and ready to perform. Then he would go on to something else. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=720.0,780.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"He never\nhad anything to say to me about music. He was a very technical person and that's\nwhat I wanted. That's what I felt that I needed. I was kind of appalled by the\nfact that some of his students were extremely technically adept, but their\nmusicality, and their sense of line and phrase was just not there. He just\ndidn't bother with that.\n\nAnd so at the end of the year, he asked me to produce this program. I told him I\nwasn't ready. He said, \"Well, if you're not ready by next week, you won't take\nthe juries.\" So I think I took about a week off from school, and I must have\npracticed ten hours a day in Washington. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=780.0,840.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I went in and I played for him and he\nwas very -- I wouldn't use the word effusive -- but he was very complimentary. I\nsaid, \"Well, thank you very much.\" Then he leaned over and said, \"Who are you\nstudying with next year?\" I said, \"Well, I'm studying with you.\" He said, \"Oh,\nno, you're not.\" And I said, \"Well, okay.\"\n\nSo my third year I went back to Mr. Ericourt. He was a concert pianist, and he\nwas all over the place. Sometimes you'd miss lessons, which was, I guess, all\nright. I went back to him and I signed up -- you didn't do this because it was\njust not to be done. You don't change teachers. I remember I had a friend who\nchanged from Mr. Laderoute to Alice Duschak, and he never got over that.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=840.0,900.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And so I just went into my first lesson. He was out someplace. The door was open\nso I just walked in and sat down at the piano. It was a Baldwin piano because he\nwas a Baldwin artist. He had a little five- or six-foot-something piano in there\nnext to a big black seven- or nine-foot Steinway. I won't talk about the\nBaldwin, but they don't last. But this one had the most beautiful sound. I\nremember playing it the year before. I was sitting in there, playing something,\nand he walked in and shut the door. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=900.0,960.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And he was immaculate -- he had these highly\npolished French shoes, and a beautiful suit that looked like it was silk. He\nshut the door, and he said, \"Why do you think, after you walked out of here last\nyear, that I would take you back? Why do you think that?\" And I said, \"Because\nyou love me. [Laughs] You like my tone.\" He said \"play something,\" and he sat\ndown and we didn't fight anymore. Well, I got my bachelor's with him, and then I\nworked on the master's.\n\nBut all the way through this, my entire time that I was at Peabody, ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=960.0,1020.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I knew that\nI could go to a student there and be told what I needed to do to play a certain\npiece. And to this day that person, as long as that person is alive, I feel that\nhe is one of the greatest piano teachers in the world, in my experience. And he\nnever charged me. He was a student of Mr. Ericourt's too. When I got my\nbachelor's degree, when I chose my program, he [advised me]. I chose a Ravel\nsonatine. That was going to be my third piece. I played the [Bach] Concerto in\nthe Italian Style, the D Major Mozart K. 576 Sonata for Piano, and the Ravel\nSonatine, and the [Chopin] B Minor Scherzo, Op. 20. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=1020.0,1080.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I had a lesson with this\nstudent on [a] Monday -- and he never charged me a penny. He said, you must\nmemorize this entire piece by Wednesday, because it's January, and your recital\nis on May 22. So it must be memorized on Wednesday. I started it on Monday, and\nI memorized it by Wednesday. I listened to what he did. His name is Reynaldo\nReyes. He was the greatest influence. As long as he's out there at Towson, if I\nchose to play the Rachmaninoff Third [concerto], he could teach it to me. I will\nbe indebted to him in every way. When I think of myself of a pianist -- of\ncourse, I'm a voice teacher too now -- but if I decided not to do that anymore,\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=1080.0,1140.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"he would tell me how to think, how to hold my hands, the whole bit. That's\nreason enough to be interviewed -- to recognize him and Mary Hunter.\n\n[Stefans] Grové was another idol. I was in his theory class. I don't know if he\nwas an innovative teacher, but he didn't use a book. He made us buy the Penguin\nBook [of Elizabethan Songs]. It was some book with texts of pieces in it. There\nwas this very grandiose soprano in the class. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=1140.0,1200.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Her name was Sylvia Syriah\n[phonetic], and her sister was in there. She had blonde hair and the other one\nwas very stout. Our first assignment was a piece called \"I Care Not for These\nLadies Who Must be Wooed and Woed\", give me fair so and so. We had to write\nmusic for a soprano, recorder, and piano accompaniment.\n\nI found out in his class during the course of that first assignment that there\nwere people who could play Liszt and Berg and all of these people -- we were in\nthe beginning first year of theory -- they could play rings around me. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=1200.0,1260.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But when\nit got time for them to read what they had written, they couldn't do it. You\nknow, they couldn't read easily. I had learned just from trying to keep up with\nsingers and playing in church. I didn't know I could do it. But then [Grové]\nsaid, well, Mr. Murphy, come up and you do it. And then he played the recorder.\nWell, he played the recorder magnificently. When he played, it had a vibrato,\nand it had this musicality. He also had this little tic, you know. And I got it.\nI idolized him so much that at the end of the year I had this too. [Laughs]\n\nBut he said to me -- and it's something I'll never forget -- he said, \"Mr.\nMurphy, your tones are edible.\" ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=1260.0,1320.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"He had these big thick fingers that went up on\nthe ends. He played on a Knabe piano with an action that was not faulty, but it\nwas noisy and some of the most wonderful sounds that I have ever heard came out\nof that piano. I'm playing for him on this piano, and he is playing\nmagnificently, reading with this recorder. And he said that to me.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: That is high praise.\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: Yes. I will never forget that. [Laughter] I mean, I just went\nthrough school and tried to get out without embarrassing myself too much. But\nI'll never forget him for that. There are just some things you don't forget.\n\nAnd Mr. Cheslock was wonderful. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=1320.0,1380.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I went to him after Mr. Grové. I think that\nsame year I remember finding out that everybody didn't love the vocal people\nthat I loved. It took me about five years to get used to [Dietrich]\nFischer-Dieskau's voice. But when I was in Nebraska, I heard my piano teacher's\nZenith console record player -- I think it was called Cobramatic [phonetic] or\nsomething. I put this recording on -- it was a Columbia recording -- I don't\nknow why, I just put this thing down and listened to it. It was this woman\nsinging and it sounded like she was singing the highest note that she could and\nthen she went up five notes. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=1380.0,1440.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And it was \"Ye Now are Sorrowful\" [\"Ihr habt nun\nTraurigkeit\"] from the Brahms Requiem with [Elisabeth] Schwarzkopf, [Herbert]\nvon Karajan, and Hans Hotter. I just went completely crazy about her voice. I\nstarted listening to as many records as I could find.\n\nI learned about a woman named Jennie Tourel listening out there in Nebraska.\nWell, when I finally came to Peabody, I just went down to the Enoch Pratt [Free\nLibrary] and I would listen to anything that Schwarzkopf did. I took this gold\nand black record out on. I heard her sing something -- Well, the line went --\n[sings and hums]. Well, it's \"Im Abendrot\" of Strauss from the Four Last Songs\n[\"Vier Letzte Lieder\"]. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=1440.0,1500.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Well, I kept playing that over and over again. I stayed\nin there for an afternoon, and I'd never heard anything like that. And then I\nheard this piece called \"Beim Schlafengehen.\" That was the second one. [Sings\nmelody.] And so I ran back to school, and I told everybody I knew that I had\nlearned this wonderful music. I took the music because it didn't have the text.\nI found the text from another recording, I guess, by some other artist. I guess\nthere was only one other artist, actually. At that time, there were only two\nrecordings -- Lisa Della Casa -- and I went to Europe to get her recording\nbecause it wasn't available over here. I liked her too because she was a little\nless -- well, they used to call Miss Schwarzkopf \"arch\" all the time. [Della\nCasa] was just more straightforward and her voice was different and I liked it.\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=1500.0,1560.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So I triple-spaced the text of these songs and took them to Mr. Grové. I'd\nlooked all over. He translated them word for word for me. That was something\nelse that he did. And people were going around singing those songs.\n\nI used to say we're all crazy, but the organists and the oboists are the\ncraziest. And the singers are always the worst. [Laughs] Well, there was one,\nthere was a person who walked around with the Beethoven String Quartet [op.]\n132. Is that the C-sharp minor? She carried that miniature score with her all\nday, every day. It didn't mean anything to me until maybe twenty years ago when\nI heard it. I didn't start carrying it around, but it's one of my favorite pieces.\n\nNow I don't know what question you asked me, but you see, I have all of these\nwonderful memories.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=1560.0,1620.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Well, there were a lot of wonderful characters when you were\nat Peabody.\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: Yes. I remember Mary K. Bates [phonetic], a coloratura soprano,\nwas in my class, and on a student recital she did the \"Queen of the Night\" aria.\nAnd she got all of them [the notes] except one. I think he [Mr. Grové] played\nit one day when we were in class, and he just played her version of it, just for\nfun. It was good, except she just missed one of them.\n\nOne day he opened the door, he turned that handle up and pulled it out, and he\nlet the door squeak. He had written on the board the notes that the door\nsqueaked above the staff on ledger lines. He said, \"That is what you hear.\" And\nthen we went off. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=1620.0,1680.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"What a character. Wonderful person.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Now he's just retiring. He's in South Africa. They're actually\ndoing a Festschrift for him. You should send him a note. He would like that.\n\nSo you finished up the bachelor's program and then went on for a master's.\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: Mmm-hmm. I was with Mr. Ericourt and with Reynaldo. And see,\nwhat I did was -- It wasn't dishonest or lefthanded. I found that because I had\ntwo years previous to Peabody, a lot of the courses that I had taken, like\nEnglish or whatever it was -- I decided --\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: To transfer.\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: Yeah, but not very many. But then I looked at the summer\nschedule, and I decided I was going to take voice. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=1680.0,1740.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"School started in June and we\nfinished in May so I chose a set of songs to sing.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Who did you enroll with?\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: I studied with Alice Duschak. But I had to get to her, so that\nmeant I had to be a singer. You see, I'd been singing with Fischer-Dieskau and\nSchwarzkopf for years. I think I sang [Schubert's] \"An die Musik\" and [Bach's]\n\"Mache dich, mein Herze, rein\" from the St. Matthew Passion. And they let me in\nas a beginning student that summer. And they asked me, and I just said I'd\nstudied with a very fine teacher in Washington. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=1740.0,1800.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And that had been Schwarzkopf\nand Dieskau! [Laughs] And Gerard Souzay, I used to listen to him a lot. She let\nme use that repertoire, but wanted me to be a tenor. So I did what she told me.\nI sang [Mendelssohn's] \"If With All Your Hearts\" and it wasn't very pretty. And\nI remember -- I think his name was Johnson.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Norman Johnson.\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: Yes. And I went -- [sings \"If With All Your Hearts\" loudly]. And\nhe went -- [inaudible]. And he looked out at the clothesline. There used to be\nclotheslines at the back of her room. And I just said, I don't care, but I want\nan A out of this, and this is what she's making me sing. So I did it. And that's\nwhat I got from them.\n\nI also decided to take organ. And so I took organ, and one of my favorite pieces\nis the one from the [Bach] Great Eighteen [Chorale Preludes]: \"Deck Thyself, My\nSoul with Gladness,\" I think it's called. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=1800.0,1860.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I can't get the German right now. But\nanyway, I started working on it, and I'd memorized half of it before I even started.\n\nAnd then I took second-year orchestration and second-year counterpoint privately\nwith Mr. Cheslock. I didn't tell them that I was going to take an exam. I just\ntook the courses. And then at the end, they allowed me to take the exam.\n\nSo organ was eight credits, voice was eight credits, and the other two, the\nsecond year, whatever it was, was three, and the other was three or four. So I\ngot twenty-some hours out of the summer, you see. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=1860.0,1920.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"It cost me $200 to take four\nexams. So then, when I came, for the master's year I had one course to take\nwhich was piano, which was my downfall. Because that was the year of the\ninauguration of Jack Kennedy in the snow and all that. I had free time, so I\nmajored in two things: I majored in piano and in I Love Lucy.\n\nIt was a very strange thing. I mean, the bachelor's recital was very traumatic\nfor me. When I say that, it was like I was scared to death -- that will last you\nforever. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=1920.0,1980.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So this time I chose, I don't know what the music was, it was different.\nI did the [Bach] G Major French suite, the Op. 90 E Minor Beethoven Sonata,\nthree Brahms intermezzi Op. 117, and the Prelude and Fugue of [César] Franck,\nand it was like everything was all accidentals, except the G major. At my\nrecital I went through the prayer thing, and remember standing up in the wings\nand the same fabulous pianist -- I can't remember her name right now, but she\nplayed the \"Waldstein\" [Beethoven sonata], which I couldn't have touched. She\ntwirled me around when I went out on stage.\n\nWell, they said, \"We let you in here, but you're not getting out of here.\" I had\na number of memory slips and we didn't have affirmative action or affirmative\nleaving then. So they said no. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=1980.0,2040.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So I was supposed to graduate in May, and I gave\nthe recital in late April. So there wasn't time to repeat it. So I just decided,\nwell, you just have to do something different. Nobody told me to go to the\ngraduation, but I knew why I didn't go -- because I hadn't done what I was\nsupposed to do. So I went to the graduation, and then I sat down and learned all\nof my music, hands separately.\n\nAnother thing that happened -- a friend of mine, Jeannette Walters, bless her\nheart, she didn't mean this -- but the night before my recital, the first one,\nshe said to me, \"Well, Percy [Brown] and I are going down to the University of\nMaryland. Why don't you come along? You're not going to do anything but sit\naround and be scared, so why don't you just come on with us?\" And I said, well, fine.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=2040.0,2100.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So I went to the University of Maryland, and after a while I discovered they\nwere going -- you know, University of Maryland is on the way to Washington --\nthey were going to the University of Maryland on the Eastern Shore. I got back\nin the middle of the night, like three or four in the morning! And then to have\nto play a recital. So that was another problem. I knew not to do that ever\nagain. But this time, I practiced and I got myself together, I drove my car\ndown. I think I left my house at ten minutes of twelve. I was supposed to play\nat twelve. And I went down, I got a parking space, I walked into the back.\nBecause it was in the summer, my recital was on the stage of the main concert\nhall. I was standing in the wings, and I said, \"Oh, I guess I should say a\nprayer.\" Then I said, \"Oh, I don't have to pray. I've already prayed. I\npracticed.\" ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=2100.0,2160.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I walked out on the stage, and I stayed out there and played\neverything. Well, I never did get up until it was over. And I got an A and went\non. I think I did get an A.\n\nWhen I tell this story to my students, it's like you're talking about seeing God\nor something. It's like, \"The next exam is going to be --\" Do you know how a\nroom gets [pauses] -- like that? I got what I deserved, but I practiced and did\nmy prayer because prayer is practice, practice is prayer. If you're supposed to\ndo something, then God's given you enough sense to know what you have to do to\ndo it. You go on and do it. And it gets hushed. I say, yeah, yeah, I failed\nright in front of my mother and father. [Laughter] But that's all right. I got\nup and, you know --\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Dusted off.\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: Yeah, and did it. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=2160.0,2220.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I'm just about an average talent. I was in a\nlittle coterie of people like Veronica Tyler and Junetta Jones. They were world\nclass then. I mean, it was just amazing. Veronica used to love to say, \"You pay\nto go to this school?\" [Laughs] And I said, \"Yes, that's what I do.\" Because she\ngot full scholarships, and so did Junetta. And she [Tyler] sang for our\ngraduation and William Schuman was the commencement speaker, and he gave her a\nfull scholarship, paid her rent, and sent her cabs to pick her up to come to\nschool when she became pregnant. I used to go up there and hang out with them,\nand I would go to Juilliard with her.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=2220.0,2280.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I remember sitting in a class with Sergius Kagen, and somebody was going to\ndo a Brahms song called \"Vergebliches Ständchen,\" and he said, \"Please don't do\nthat. Nobody can do that but Victoria De Los Ángeles. I don't want to hear that\nanymore.\" And he just cut him down. And someone else was playing the [unclear],\nand I'll never forget because there's a chorale -- [sings]. And the guy at the\npiano said, \"I'm sorry, I just can't do it.\" And he broke down. But Kagen was a\nwonderful person. He's the editor of that international [Music Company]. He\nwrote a good book on vocal music. But anyway, what else do you want to know?\n[Laughs] You know, those were good days, actually.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: There was such an amazing crowd of faculty there and students\nthen. It's very humbling just thinking about that assembly.\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=2280.0,2340.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"When I moved over here, I became aware that I was going to have\nto get up on stage in front of all these friends that I had. And I had friends\nfrom all over the world there. It's funny, looking back at it, because I started\ntalking about it in class today. When I first came over here, I lived at the Y\non Druid Hill Avenue. I guess the area ten blocks square from Peabody was not\nintegrated in those days. So I would walk from the 1900 block or the 600 block\nof Druid Hill Avenue down to the Peabody. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=2340.0,2400.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And it was always like going from one\ncountry to another. And I just did it, because I knew that --\n\nFirst of all, I had wasted my father's money in two Seventh-day Adventist\ncolleges. He wanted me to be a musician, and I didn't think I wanted to be.\nThen, when I decided that I didn't want to be anything else, I had spent all his\nmoney. So I had to pay for my own education. And can you imagine, back in those\ndays? I remember paying $110 a month for my tuition. And it was like $600 and\nsomething a year or something like that. I made 125, and I paid 110, I think.\nDid I say 110?\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=2400.0,2460.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yes.\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: Yes, and I had $15 left to eat. And I used to wake up in the Y\nevery morning, and I would say, \"You can do better than this.\" This was talking\nto God. \"You can do better than this. Please hurry up.\" So after a year there, I\nhad a church job. Actually I live next door to the church now in this\nmagnificent house on Lanvale Street. But I just realized that I had this to do,\nand I just made it work. Well, finally I had a choir there.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=2460.0,2520.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/43","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I remember I paid five dollars and something a week for a double room at the Y.\nAnd my bill went up to like 60-some dollars once. And I remember getting a\nletter from the man, saying, \"Mr. Murphy, something must be done.\" And I\nborrowed the money from my piano teacher and I paid him back right away.\n\nThen this woman named Louise Smallwood, who was a member of my choir, said, \"You\nmay stay in my home until you get out of school.\" Rent free. Room and board she\ngave me. And I didn't have to cut the grass or anything. Isn't that something?\nShe had just bought a Steinway -- a beautiful walnut wood Steinway, which is\nvery odd, with beautiful ivory keys. It was a beautiful piano. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=2520.0,2580.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/44","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"On one side of\nher [house] was a woman named Louise Perrin, for whom this fountain out here [at\nCoppin] is named. She was a stalwart figure at Coppin State College. And then I\nthink her name was Jess Franklin [phonetic], who was a very prominent piano\nteacher, was on the other side of Miss Smallwood on Whittier Avenue. It was 2006\nWhittier Avenue.\n\nAnd Prentis Nolan [phonetic] lived across the street, who was the head of the\nBaltimore schools. Well, the late Miss Perrin used to put a chair up and listen\nthrough the wall to me practicing. And Prentis said that he would come out and\nsit on -- I didn't know, I was just struggling. But they liked what I was doing.\nI didn't realize that until I got a job working for him down at St. James\nEpiscopal Church, and I've been there for thirty-two years.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=2580.0,2640.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/45","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But it's just amazing how some of these things come together, isn't it?\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Yes. So you've been at St. James that long?\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: Well, I was at Metropolitan Methodist when I went to Peabody.\nAnd I was there from 1960 through 1969, and then I went to St. James in 1970,\nand I stayed there until now. I'm still there. I came here [Coppin] in '70, too,\nand I'm still here. I mean, this is wonderful. It's like starting a job all over\nagain. I worked for Henry Freedman for a number of years, who was the head of\nthe music department here.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=2640.0,2700.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/46","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I'm very aware of who I am and very modest. Average, whatever you want to call\nit. I remember a woman named Mary Terrasine [phonetic], who was the head of the\nmusic department at the College of Notre Dame.\n\nWhen I graduated from Peabody I got drafted. In fact, I got drafted and I was in\nthe army when I came back to get my degree in 1963. I got out in 1964. I got out\nearly, on the supposition that I was working on a doctorate at Peabody. I mean,\nit was anything that would work to get out of the army early. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=2700.0,2760.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/47","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And that worked. I\ngot out in October and they let me be late coming to school.\n\nI was stationed right in the Washington area because I was a guinea pig for the\nArmy for germ warfare. They accepted Seventh-day Adventists at that time -- I\ndon't know whether it's still true -- because of the vegetarian diet -- they\naccepted them as being the healthiest people in the world. They used people\nduring that time to experiment on. You could just volunteer. Then, after you\nwere working in the army in this particular place, they would ask you if you\nwanted to sign up for this particular project. And I did that for six weeks. And\nmy health hasn't been ruined. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=2760.0,2820.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/48","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"They were studying tularemia, and it was at Fort Dietrich.\n\nI taught also at Columbia Union College my whole time in the Army. And I was\nfirst accompanist for the Choral Arts Society of Washington with Norman\nScribner, who was a student at Peabody. I idolized him so much. There's another\nperson who started the one here -- he just died. It was before Theo Morrison,\nbecause I played for Theo too. He was at the [Cathedral of the] Incarnation, and\nhe lived with George Woodhead, on Park Avenue.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Right. Rodney Hansen.\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: Rodney Hansen. Well, I don't know why I went up there, but when\nI was a student, I went up to the Incarnation and sang with him. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=2820.0,2880.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/49","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I remember we\ndid something called \"A Vision of Airplanes.\" And there was a woman named Ellen\nBarlag. She came and she did \"In the Beginning.\" And of course, I was friendly\nwith Ellen. What's her last name?\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: King.\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: King. But back in those days, I didn't know her or anything. I\nwas just awed. And Joe Stephens [phonetic] played the piano, and we became\nfriends. Rodney could hear anything. And he had the knack, like Scribner, to do\nin rehearsal what he wanted done, I'll put it that way. And we did -- What's\nthat French? [Hums] Honegger. \"King David.\" I did \"King David\" with Rodney.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=2880.0,2940.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/50","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Well, I just thought when I grow up I want to be just like him. Because my\nconducting skills were nil. But the fact that he could hear everything and then\nhe would tell you what he wanted done. He didn't get up in front of the audience\nand go through all of these gyrations, which a lot of people like doing.\n\nAnd then I recognized that people would criticize him. I mean, they would say\nthey liked the way we sang and they liked everything, but they thought that they\ndidn't like his conducting because it was so seemingly pedestrian. We knew what\nhe wanted, and he didn't have to -- And Norman is the same way. I mean, if he\ndoes that [claps], it means that the roof is going to come down. You've written\neverything in the music. And every score that I ever had with either of them, I\njust revere. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=2940.0,3000.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468/transcript/39157/annotation/51","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Then, little knowing that I would meet and work with the great Tom\nHall, who was one of my best friends. I haven't seen him in a year and three months.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: How did you become friends with Tom?\n\n[END PART 1]","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117468#t=3000.0,3060.0"}]}]},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 2 of 3 - pims0091_MurphyAM-2_01.mp3"]},"duration":1798.03429,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/117/469/small/murphy_maurice_photoshop.jpg?1651083448","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/content/2/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-peabody.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/117/469/original/pims0091_MurphyAM-2_01.mp3?1624270938","type":"Audio","format":"audio/mpeg","duration":1798.03429,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["MurphyM_2_OHMS_20220729 [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MAURICE MURPHY: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=0.0,60.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Well, I was at the [Baltimore] School for the Arts and they were\ntreating me like dirt. I mean, I would have three or four students that -- After\nabout five years, the students would cut me or something. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=60.0,120.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"For a time they would\ngive me trouble, you know, some tough ones. And even though I'm not there this\nyear, I would do anything for Chris Ford. He's a wonderful person. I pulled them\nall in and said to them, let me just tell you who I am. You might not know, but\nmy name is Maurice Murphy, and I said I have six jobs. You understand? Six. I\nhave been working in six different jobs for about an amalgam of 112 years, and I\ndidn't apply for any of them. Do you understand? I'm not here for the money.\n\nThen, in about four weeks, I would pull them in again, and they would say, \"Yes,\nDr. Murphy, we know you have six jobs.\" [Laughs] Well, one day Tom called me.\nNow, I played for Ted [Theodore] Morrison. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=120.0,180.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"When I moved over here from\nWashington -- I used to teach in the public school system in Washington. I would\nleave there -- this was after the Army -- and then I would go and teach at\nColumbia Union College from 3:30 or 4:00 until 7:00. I'd teach piano in the\nmusic department there.\n\nBecause my piano teacher was the head of the department, he hired me. I think I\nwas the first Black that they'd ever had on the campus. Then I would leave there\nand go to Norman Scribner's rehearsals in Washington. I remember one day we were\nsinging the Verdi Requiem and he came over and he said would you come over and\nplay this. And he asked me to play the Sanctus movement of the Verdi Requiem.\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=180.0,240.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"When I first did it, I thought it was stupid and I wouldn't sing it. I sang with\nthe Howard University choir. Because before I went to Peabody, I had been at\nHoward. And when I was a student at Peabody, I would pay attention to what those\nBlack people were doing over in Washington. Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack\nwere over there -- they were students then. So I went over and I asked the dean\nof the school. Dean [Warner] Lawson. He was a friend of my father's, he was a\ngreat pianist, and he was the choral conductor too. I went to his office, and I\nsaid, \"Well, Dean Lawson, I want to sing in the Verdi Requiem if you don't\nmind.\" \"Well, yes, but, Murphy, let me ask you this. We trained you here. You\nwere here for four years, and then when you decided to go into music, you went\nto the Peabody. What is that all about?\" ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=240.0,300.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I said, \"Well, there were some\nthings that I saw here, and there was a treatment here that -- I just decided\nthat if I was going to go to a music school, I would go anywhere but here.\" I\ndidn't mean to say this to him. I said, \"I'd just go anywhere but Howard. I\ndidn't want to come back here.\" And he said, \"We don't need anybody else to be\nsinging the Verdi Requiem. We don't need you.\" So I said, \"well, okay.\" I went\nto the door, and I said, \"Please, Dean, please let me. Don't do this.\" He said,\n\"Go over there and wait for me.\" And he let me sing.\n\nSo then, I decided when the Sanctus came along, I didn't like that. It's stupid.\nSo I just wouldn't sing it. But by the time I'd gotten to Norman, when I was\nsinging with him, it was all right. But I knew the accompaniment by ear. I'd\nnever played it. And I banged that thing. \"Hosanna in excelsis.\" [Sings, hums]\nThey stood up and gave me a standing ovation. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=300.0,360.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"There were only two of us, two\nBlack people in this group. Not that it had anything to do with Black or White\nor anything, but I was very honored by it. Every day, every rehearsal from that\nday until I moved over here, Norman would come over and say \"Would you play the\nrehearsal, please?\" And I couldn't talk to him. I don't even think I spoke to\nhim. I just thought that he was the greatest thing that ever happened to me.\n\nIt was funny because Tom did a piece that he [Scribner] wrote for the Choral\nArts Society when Ted Morrison was the head of it. I talked to him like he was a\nhuman being for the first time. I mean this was like ten years ago when Tom was\nconducting. I sat in the back and listened and talked to him during the break or\nsomething, because I think I was playing, I can't remember. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=360.0,420.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But anyway, while I\nwas working on my doctorate, somebody asked me from Choral Arts if I would be on\nthe panel to choose the new [conductor]. They wanted four weeks. And I said,\nwell, I could do one. Tom auditioned the night I was there. I didn't go back and\nI didn't choose the conductor. But I remembered Tom. I remember the way he\nlooked, and those eyes -- never knowing that I would look over a piano for\neighteen years and look at that face and those eyes looking down. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=420.0,480.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"That's a musician.\n\nBut anyway, he had an assistant conductor, and he called me when she couldn't be\nthere once. I didn't know him. He said, \"I need somebody to do a Brahms Requiem\nrehearsal for me tonight, or tomorrow night, and I was wondering if you would be\nwilling to do it.\" And I said, \"Well, I'll be glad to do it.\" I love the Brahms\nRequiem. So I got the music, and I started practicing, and I said, well, now\nwait a minute, I can't play this stuff. I used to play this. I did this before.\nAnd it seemed like it got harder and harder. And then I went home and I started\nlooking through old programs. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=480.0,540.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I saw that fifteen years before, I had been the\nrehearsal pianist for Ted Morrison doing the Brahms Requiem. Fifteen years! If\nyou haven't done it in fifteen years --. So I did it. And he called me the day\nof the rehearsal and said, \"You know, I'm sorry to tell you this, but the piano\nthat we usually have is being repaired, so it's a terrible piano that you're\ngoing to play tonight. And the other thing is that Oprah Winfrey and all of\nChannel 13 will be here tonight to tape the entire rehearsal.\" Typical of Tom,\nbecause he always throws those curves. Well, I went there and played, and when I\ngot through he said, \"Well, look, I'd like to give you the first turn down for\nassistant conductor of this group, if you'd just think about it.\" And I said\nokay. So I accepted. And that was in 1984 and I was there through '99, I think.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=540.0,600.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I won't say what I told him. I went to Korea on two occasions with the choir\nhere. And the first year, the flight was nineteen hours, and when I got back, it\nwas on a Saturday. I knew that we had rehearsals on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday\nand Wednesday. But I had two other assistants. Well, I went to the School of the\nArts, and I saw the dean, who sang in the tenor section. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=600.0,660.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"He was a wonderful\nperson. He saw me and he said, \"Where were you?\" And I said, \"What do you mean?\"\nHe said, \"Well, we had rehearsal last night.\" I said, \"Really? I didn't see\nthat.\" And I had just been on a plane for nineteen hours. So I went to the\nrehearsal the next night, and Tom levitated. Now, this is after sixteen years or\nsomething. I said, \"Look, let's talk about it tomorrow.\" So then I decided that\nI would just sit out the next year.\n\nHe says, \"What am I gonna tell them?\" I said, \"I'll tell them.\" And I said the\nonly thing I hate is that I thought that I would have the record for being the\nperson that put up with you longer than anybody. And he said, \"But you do.\" I\nused to say, \"Do you have any friends that you've known for as long as you've\nknown me?\" He said, \"Well, Mr. Ford.\" ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=660.0,720.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Well, Mr. Ford was his teacher. But I\nsaid, \"They see you at Thanksgiving. I see you every week.\" Tom is wonderful.\n\nIn school you have so many things thrown at you, that you never know how you're\ngoing to use them. Like I remember taking a conducting course with Elliott\nGalkin, and we started final exams in something like the third week. There must\nhave been forty or fifty of us in there. We had to read three different Bach\nchorales in four clefs, soprano, alto, tenor and bass clefs, and then somebody\nwas playing wrong notes. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=720.0,780.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And then you'd have the [hums] Beethoven Seventh\nSymphony. I'll never forget those things.\n\nI remember the first time I played for Tom. I was used to just coming in. I\nnever had any trouble with him when I played the Brahms Requiem for him. And we\nwere doing The Seasons of Haydn and he does something -- he says no. [Laughs]\nWhat in the world is this? And I just said, there are 125 people I don't know.\nHere I am and there's Tom, and we didn't discuss the music or anything. He would\nput his entire being in the preparatory beat. He would go [inaudible] -- and you\ncould see everything. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=780.0,840.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"For the fifteen or sixteen years that I played for him, we\nnever said, \"This is the way it's going to go.\" Even at a rehearsal, it just was\nright in his stick. And he's just phenomenal. And he taught me a whole lot. He\ntaught me about accompaniment. You know, I miss that. And then maybe not really.\nI think I did that long enough. And it's nice to leave here and go straight\nhome. [Laughs] You know, you get to that after a while.\n\nAnd he's another person who called. David Simon [founding director of Baltimore\nSchool for the Arts]. He called me. He said, \"Could you come see me?\" ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=840.0,900.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I said,\n\"What's taken you so long? I've been waiting for you to call me for thirteen\nyears.\" And he's a wonderful guy, too.\n\nAnd then I remember another person that I respect. I was ironing a shirt and I\npicked the phone up. I said hello. And she said, \"Hello, Maurice, this is Ruth\nDrucker.\" I said, \"Oh, hi, Ruth.\" She said, \"I'm taking a sabbatical next year,\nand I was wondering if I could --\" I said, \"What, me?\" She said, \"I would be honored.\"\n\nSam Gordon called me up, and he said, \"Maurice, I think that the Bach Society is\nlooking for a music director, and I'd like to put your hand in the hat because\nthey need to know who you are.\" I said, \"Well, okay, you can.\" And that was\nanother thing because when I was there, they would have programs that were in\nscript, in German. And there were all these angels, all this stuff. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=900.0,960.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I said,\nmy goodness, this is amazing. These people are something.\n\nI remember doing the [Bach] B Minor Mass with George Woodhead. He never forgave\nme for what I did. I was just a tenor singing in the B Minor Mass -- I was doing\nthat and going to school. That was crazy. But when I had flunked my first\nmaster's recital in April, I just had to leave. I needed a break. So I didn't go\nto any more rehearsals. And I felt like he held that against me for the rest of\nour lives.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Well, tenors are not spareable. [Laughter]\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: Well, you got that right. But I wasn't any great tenor -- I was\nsinging out of my fach [voice type] because I'm really a high baritone. I really\njust wanted to learn that music too. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=960.0,1020.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Well, anyway, the Bach Society went through\nthis year and a half search, and I really knew that they would never choose me.\nThey sang spirituals, they did French music of Henk Badings, they did a Bach\ncantata. And then Ellen's husband auditioned too, and Fred Briscoe auditioned,\nand they were big names. And so this woman, the head of the thing, called me up\nin September. She said, \"Do you want to know what's going on?\" I said, \"No, I\ndon't.\" Because I was scared then. And then they sent me a letter that said that\nI had been approved by unanimous vote to be their conductor. I'm the\nquote-unquote artistic director now because I have a conductor that I brought in.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: So when did your association with the Bach Society begin?\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: It began in 1987. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=1020.0,1080.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"It's like I'm just sort of drifting past them\nnow. Actually, it was a student that came down here to study, to sing with Tom\nHall's group, Choral Arts. And now he's teaching at American University and he's\nall over the place. His name is Bob Zuber. He's just young, and I brought him in\nbecause he came from a tradition at Ithaca College where they did a madrigal\nfeast every year. I thought that would be a nice moneymaker for the Bach Society\nrather than giving these concerts and making two or three hundred dollars. And\nhe made thousands. Of course, he doesn't know how to make thousands and keep\nthousands. It got to be a little entertainment-esque type of endeavor. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=1080.0,1140.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"You know,\nthe clientele is different.\n\nSo there are a lot of changes. And I'm still in the old school where I'd like\nthe Bach Society to do not just Bach. You could do a madrigal feast. Well, I'm\njust stuck. So I prefer just to sort of be on the sidelines. I haven't resigned,\nbut it will be coming. And my taxes are not -- I'm not up to par. So I explained\nto them that whatever the salary is, if it was necessary to give me a W-2 form\nfor $800 or $1,000, they could kiss me goodbye. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=1140.0,1200.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And they wanted to do that, so I\nsaid, \"No, I'm not accepting a W-2 form. You can get me a computer or\nsomething.\" But they can't do that either. So, I'm out. I mean, I would sing\nwith them, and if they needed me to substitute or something, I'd do that.\nBecause I'm in -- not tax problems, but you make money and then the making of\nthe money puts you in another category, and then you have to pay -- Who needs that?\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: So what's next?\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: What's next for me? Well, people keep saying, like Bob Benson.\nYou know Bob Benson?\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Yes.\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: He keeps saying, well, when are you going to retire? And I say,\nyou know, I forgot about that. [Laughter]\n\nMy car was impounded a few months ago, and I decided to start riding my bicycle\nup here. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=1200.0,1260.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I can ride my bicycle up here in eleven minutes. I did it every day in\nthe fall. And I said, \"Well, I don't mind not having it. I don't feel like going\nthrough all that. Because out there on Orleans [Street], it is so undignified.\nSo I keep putting it off. I'm going to have a car again, but it's been easy. And\nI forget that I'm sixty-four years old. And someone said, \"Are you getting\nSocial Security?\" I said no. There are colleagues up here who are getting Social\nSecurity and their regular pay too. And I don't care about that. I mean, they\ncan take my Social Security and I'll get them back with taxes for the next two years.\n\nBut I love being here. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=1260.0,1320.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I live on Lafayette Square and I can get here in about\nfive minutes by car, eleven minutes by bike.\n\nI have a church job that's on Freemont and Pennsylvania, St. Peter Claver\nChurch. I started there in 1969.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: And you're still there?\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: Yeah. And I play a Moller tracker action. And listen to this. A\ntracker action organ that one of the greatest [organists], one of my best\nfriends -- even though I haven't talked to her -- Edith Ho. Well, Edith would\npractice and play funerals for me at St. Peter Claver. Whenever she would give\norgan tours, she would need to practice on a flat pedal keyboard. And she would\nbe happy to do that. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=1320.0,1380.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And they would tell me that the priest would say, \"Well, we\nhave Edith Ho. She's our second-string organist.\" And they gave me the Bach\n[unclear]. They're crazy people. But Edith would go there and lock herself in\nthe church and practice.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: I remember singing at Peter Claver with Terry Snowden.\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: Where did he go?\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Terry died, I guess, more than twelve years ago. He was one of\nthe first casualties of the AIDS epidemic. That was terrible.\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: Did he go to Rochester, New York? He went someplace.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: I think it was right before he left, and he had done a group\nof songs and I sang for him, and Peter Claver was one of the places.\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=1380.0,1440.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yes. Because he used to play there.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: I remember that organ.\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: It's special. It just happened about eight years ago, I tuned in\nto the sounds that that organ makes. There's a release. When I grew up, I\nremember being in a church in Washington where the organ was a tracker. If you\nsat in the audience here, the keyboard would be like here and the person would\nbe facing that way. You would see the organ keys go down. And they coupled them.\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=1440.0,1500.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I saw the top row would go down and the person was playing Bach. I just went\nto pieces.\n\nThere were two very talented women I grew up around. One of them played. One of\nthem was too big to get on an organ bench. They were sisters -- the most evil\npeople in the world. Alma Blackmon -- I shouldn't say that, but that's okay. But\nthey were the greatest. I have never met any greater music -- For instance, Paul\nHume wrote an article about Alma. She was an accompanist and a soprano. Her\nsister had a formal degree, and Alma was a kindergarten supervisor. And Paul\nHume wrote in his article that there are not many people that I've ever seen\nthat could sightread a Hugo Wolf accompaniment and transpose it at sight.\n\nAnd I saw this woman. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=1500.0,1560.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I remember turning pages, and this tenor came up and she\nwas playing [Roger Quilter's] \"Love's Philosophy,\" and he said, \"I can't sing in\nthat key.\" She said, \"Oh, I'll put it down a third. Don't worry about it, go\non.\" And she did, and she ran all over the keyboard like that. I said, \"Well,\ngee whiz, maybe when I get to be a senior, I'll be able to do that.\" [Laughter]\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Well, to be in one church for that length of time is really an\ninteresting experience. To see the congregation ebb and flow and to see tastes\nin music change. What has been your view?\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: Another church that I play in, St. James the Episcopal, would be\na little more pertinent to your question. When I went there, Donald O. Wilson\nwas there. He was a wonderful person, and I remember he asked me if I would play\na funeral. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=1560.0,1620.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And then I remembered that I had, back in -- I don't know how many\nyears ago. Jeannette Walters was a fellow student, and I spent a whole day with\nJeannette and Percy [Brown], and [unclear]. We were looking at the televised\nfuneral of Winston Churchill. That's when I decided they were really taking this\nseriously. And when they brought him out and they sang \"O God, Our Help In Ages\nPast,\" it was just magnificent.\n\nSo when I played that funeral at St. James, I just played the organ. I started\nwith just monophonic playing. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=1620.0,1680.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I opened all the stops and then I played \"O God,\nOur Help In Ages Past.\" And everyone got up, and people never forgot that. And I\nwas going across the street and Father Wilson was getting in the hearse and he\nsaid, \"We want you here.\" I said, \"Well, I just started at St. Mary's\nEpiscopal.\" And he said, \"I don't care where you are. We want you here.\"\n\nAnd so I went there, and they had a wonderful girls' choir that was full of very\nintelligent children. I guess I taught them for about three or four months, and\nthen I had to change rehearsal because it was on Saturday, and, being a\nSeventh-day Adventist, I don't work on Saturdays. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=1680.0,1740.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469/transcript/39158/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So I moved the rehearsal. And\nafter about a year, they were so amazing, these girls. And the more I learned\nabout choral music -- I was hanging out with Lloyd Bowers, who's very churchy,\nand he was introducing me to all these different anthems. So I started teaching\nthem. We were asked to sing for four years at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen\nwith [Robert] Twynham.\n\n[END PART 2]","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117469#t=1740.0,1800.0"}]}]},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 3 of 3 - pims0091_MurphyAM-2_02_edited.mp3"]},"duration":1748.40163,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/117/470/small/murphy_maurice_photoshop.jpg?1651083360","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/content/3/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-peabody.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/117/470/original/pims0091_MurphyAM-2_02_edited.mp3?1624270939","type":"Audio","format":"audio/mpeg","duration":1748.40163,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["MurphyM_2-02_OHMS_20220729 [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MAURICE MURPHY: We'd do things like \"Oh Freedom!,\" \"Way over in Beula lan',\" the\nSchoenberg \"Friede auf Erden.\" Nansi [Carroll] came and did The Book of the\nHanging Gardens, of Schoenberg. And I'll never forget, we did The Book of the\nHanging Gardens, and some spirituals, Brahms' Liebeslieder waltzes from opus 65\nand opus 52. We had put down fifteen songs on lyrics of Stefan [George] by\nSchoenberg and this man called me up and said, \"Dr. Murphy, I just want you to\nknow that fifteen of anything is too much.\" [Laughter]\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=0.0,60.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But I was very honored to have a church choir that could sing the way they sing.\nThese girls could sing with a straight tone. It was very, very English, in the\njargon of the day. You would just say, it was very English up in there.\n\nThen, after Father Wilson, we got another person. The next strong person was\nMichael Curry, and he was just a young whippersnapper -- smart, hard working. It\nsort of floated down -- It floated over to something else. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=60.0,120.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Okay, so it wasn't\nEnglish. There was still an English capacity, which he really wasn't interested\nin, but he respected. And I had the students -- We could just do anything. I\nwill never forget, I was getting ready to go out and play, and I looked at the\nprogram, and he had put a piece called \"He Rose.\" It's a spiritual or something.\nAnd it goes, [sings] \"he rose, he rose, so the devil...\" \"Oh, no, I can't play\nthat.\" He said, \"That's all right.\" I almost had a heart attack because I hate\nto do that.\n\nThen the next year, I said, \"I don't care, I'll do it.\" Then he wanted me to\nplay \"I'm So Glad Jesus is With Me.\" [Laughter] ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=120.0,180.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Well, I just said \"oh, no!\" I\nalmost had heart palpitations. He said, \"You don't have to do it. You can do\nanything you want.\" And I said, I'll do it. So what? So I can do that too. I can\ndo anything. Whatever, if you want me to do it, I'll do it.\n\nThen these students of mine -- I had a student who came in as a tenor. Then we\nfound a voice that she had not ruined with gospel music -- not that gospel music\nis a voice wrecker. But gospel music can be a voice wrecker if it's used against\nyoung people by people who are worse than murderers who let them ruin their\nvoices. After two years and I taught her how to breathe and everything, she\ncould sing a high E-flat easily. She was a student here -- no music department\nhere. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=180.0,240.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"The music department [at Coppin] is an adjunct department and it's for\nappreciation, but it's not a major program. In 1985 she went to the Met. She was\nsinging an aria called \"Glitter and Be Gay.\" And she sang for Opera Ebony, and\nthe guy stopped her on the second page so she didn't get a chance to sing her\nhigh E-flat. So when she went to the Met, I said, \"You tell them you're going to\nstart in the middle with the narration. You know, 'pearls, ruby rings--'\" She\nsaid, \"Every time I sang above the staff they looked up.\"\n\nShe said when she got through, they said, \"What is it about Baltimore?\" There\nwere eight singers in the end. She said, \"We all studied with the same teacher.\"\n[Laughs] Which was not true. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=240.0,300.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"This was for the Porgy and Bess chorus -- they\nauditioned people from all over the world for that eighty-five-member chorus.\nAnd I had three students who were in that chorus. And I had another student who\nwas already in, who had already gotten in. Her name is Yvette Matthews. The\nstudent I'm talking about is Dorothy Johnson. And I had pleaded with her,\n\"Please, Dorothy.\" Well, she had gone to an audition to try to get into the\nproduction of Porgy and Bess with Yvette three years before, and she had taken a\nstudent of mine for fun. His name was Rodney Wing. She took him with her, and\nshe sang \"Bess, You Is My Woman Now\" with him. They thanked her and offered him\nthe understudy role and gave him [the role of] Jake. Because she was going\nthrough her monthly thing, and she just said, \"There was a lid on my voice.\" And\nshe was mad! ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=300.0,360.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"She said, \"I'll never take another person with me.\"\n\nSo during the sermon at St. James -- She sings with me at the choir there. When\nI met her, we were going up to do a lyceum at Marshall [University] and she\nsaid, \"We didn't have hymnals at our church. We had one-line songs.\" And I said,\n\"What are those?\" She said, \"Just one line.\" And I said, \"Like what?\" And now\nwe're ready, we're going up. We're singing the \"Alto Rhapsody,\" \"Friede auf\nErden,\" spirituals, and gospel music. We're on our way up there, and she goes,\n[sings] \"What's the matter with Jesus...\" And she set that out, and then she\nwalked from the front to the back and showed how you use your clothes and\neverything for rhythm. It was just phenomenal. Because I'd never heard of a\none-line song. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=360.0,420.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So I had that kind of training for me. Then she wanted to sing\n\"Many Waters Cannot Quench Love\" with a straight tone. That's what she wanted.\nShe wanted to be English, and she said, \"I'll never sing another gospel --\" And\nI said, \"Oh, no, you take that and carry it with you.\"\n\nOne of the greatest things that I had happen was that I had a student from here\nand after two years of study, I took her to Washington to audition at the\nPhillips Collection. Two years before I had called this woman that I thought was\nthe goddess of music -- I can't remember her name. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=420.0,480.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"She died soon after. It was '72.\n\nI had met this friend of mine, Nansi Carroll, who grew up in Baltimore, who's a\ngenius. Nancy's father was the Bishop of the Methodist Church in Boston for a\nwhile. He lives here now. Ed Carroll is his name. I called her up. Nansi was so\nphenomenal -- I think she went to the [Peabody] Prep. She has a doctorate in\nvoice, with Phyllis Curtin from Yale. She did [Barber's] Hermit Songs, I think.\nWhatever it was, I was playing for her. I took her over there. I called the\nwoman up, and I said you don't know me, but my father used to take me to the\nconcerts at the Phillips Collection every Sunday when I was little. I just think\nyou should hear this woman because she's wonderful.\n\nAnd the lady said, \"Well, fine. Could you come over tomorrow at eleven o'clock?\"\nAnd I said yes. And so we went over, and Nansi sang \"St. Ita's Vision\" and the\nwoman came over to her and said, \"Well, could you open our season?\" ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=480.0,540.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Isn't that\nsomething? And she did.\n\nAnd so I always felt that it would mean a lot to me to have a student -- now, I\nwould never do it again. But to have a student to go to the Phillips Collection,\nthat's like going home. And Paul Hume reviewed her and he gave us a nice review.\nBut we went to the audition and I'll never forget. I took my father with me. And\nI took Dorothy, the coloratura soprano. I told Dorothy, \"Now, I don't want any\nreaction to anything that goes on here today. Don't do one thing. I don't care\nwhat you hear. Don't do anything. Nothing. Either of you.\" Daddy, too. So they\nwere sitting in the back of the room and I can't remember what Yvette did. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=540.0,600.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I\nthink she did a Fauré song, something about love. It's real fast --\n\n [INTERRUPTION]\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: -- I think she did the \"Mon Sauvage\" -- you know, the little\n\"Lullaby on a Black Child\" that [Victoria] de los Angeles used to do? Well, she\ndid that or something, and this man Charles Crowder [music director for the\nPhillips Collection] came up and said, \"Who are you? Where are you from?\" He\nsaid, \"The fact that you will sing here is little consequence to me. But where\nhave you been?\" And she said, \"Well, this is wonderful.\" We had opened the\nseason, but it was Christmas. We did something in December of '76, I think, and\nshe started right in this room in '74. In '74, you know?\n\nAnyway, you were asking me this question about St. James. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=600.0,660.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Well, Michael Curry,\none of his favorite songs went like this. [Sings] \"I come to the garden alone.\"\nWhat a brilliant, brilliant man. And he said to us one day, \"Someone insisted\nthat I put my name in as bishop of North Carolina. But you know they're not\ngoing to pick me. So you don't have to worry. I'll be retired from here.\" And\ntwo years ago, they chose him to be the bishop of the Episcopal Church in the\nentire -- not the [unclear] -- he is the bishop of North Carolina. With his\nBlack self. [Laughs] We went to Duke University and sang for him when he was\nseated, it was wonderful. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=660.0,720.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And we miss him.\n\nYou know, I've never done this, to just sit down and really think about this\nwhole -- I think I'm going to go and get emotional. But anyway, I was very, very\ncaught up in the English church, which I still am. Did you see the Queen\nMother's -- I mean, that music. And for Diana's funeral, too, it was just\nwonderful. But I told my students -- When I teach conducting I tell them about\nhaving grown up in a Seventh-day Adventist church and I'm going to try to teach\nyou something about rhythm and meter and stuff. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=720.0,780.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I'll say to them, [sings in\nmonotone] \"Happy birthday to you\" like that. And invariably I will hear half the\nclass say, \"Happy birfday\" [phonetic]. So after I get through with the rhythm\nand the meter business, I'll say, \"This is something that I don't want you ever\nto do again. I don't care if you hear your mother do it, you leave her alone,\nlet her do it. But I want you to be able to do it two ways. 'Birthday' is\nB-I-R-T-H. Take those lips apart and put your tongue by your teeth and say\n'birthday.'\" They laugh at me. I say, \"Now, if you want to be hanging out on\nNorth Avenue, and you want to say, 'Hey, Moe, birfday [phonetic],' you can do\nthat too. But when you work in a bank or something, it's 'birthday.'\" You\nunderstand? \"Yes, sir. But you're not my English teacher. I said, \"Whatever.\nWhatever I know that I want you to do, you're in my class. It's not a democracy.\nYou have to do what I tell you.\" \"Oh, okay.\" [Laughs]\n\nWe sing gospel music. We sing \"Ye choirs in New Jerusalem\" Sunday. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=780.0,840.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"We've had a\ngood time at St. James. And I wonder what's next. It's a little less hectic, my\nlife, in that I keep thinking, I'm going to go sing for Tom again. But I'm\nresting right now because that's a long time for responsibility. But he's a\nwonderful friend.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: And a wonderful musician.\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: Yes. I mean, listen. I used to play four services: 7:30, 9:00,\n11:00, and 12:30. And then I would get home about 2:00, take a shower and put a\ntuxedo on and go out and play organ and continuo for something like the [Bach]\nSt. John Passion or the B Minor [Mass]. I did the B Minor Mass twice and I said,\n\"Oh, no.\" ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=840.0,900.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"It finally came to me, \"I'm not doing that again.\"\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: That's going to the mountain. [Laughter]\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: Going to the mountain once is enough. Or twice. And I said, \"No,\nI'm not doing that again.\" And Tom asked me, \"Could you play the Mary Our\nQueen?\" I said, \"No, I can't do it.\" And so he said to me, \"Okay, then I will\nget somebody else. I will get a real organist and I'll get somebody that has\nspecial shoes.\" [Laughter] I said, \"Okay, well, you do that. Good.\"\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: You know, I've often thought back to your early days at\nPeabody. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=900.0,960.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I could go on. English church music is my favorite. But that first\ngroup of African American students at Peabody -- Veronica Tyler, Junetta Jones.\nWhen you think of starting out at a conservatory level and then actually getting\na career in music, I mean, it's tough. And nobody expects a hundred percent of\nthe group [to succeed]. A hundred percent of that group did. Every single one.\nThat was quite a group to waft in with, wasn't it?\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: Yeah, can you list them? Myrtle Mack Dutton, Percy Brown -- he's\na music teacher in New York. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=960.0,1020.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And then there was --\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Shirley Carter was also in the early group. She's a little bit\nbehind you. If you move ahead a little bit to Dorothy Lofton Jones --\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: That was the first time I ever heard -- What was his name? I'll\nget it. Anyway, we were in school together, we were in Mr. Grové's class\ntogether and he's a conductor. At any rate, he's either in Dundalk [unclear] or\nhe has show choirs and stuff like that. He said, \"Man, you need to go down to\nMr. Laderoute's rep class. Those girls are down there trying to battle each\nother, see who can sing higher than they are.\" That's the way he expressed it.\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=1020.0,1080.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So I went down there, and those were the days when Veronica and Junetta were in\nthe same class, in Mr. Laderoute's class. And then there was another wonderful\nsinger named Suzanne Mentzer. And she moved to Washington. I don't know where\nshe is now, but she was a phenomenal singer. The three of them were the great\nprizes of the school, and I remember going there and Junetta, Veronica, and\nLofton Jones did the final trio from Rosenkavalier. And I'll never forget that.\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=1080.0,1140.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"In fact, about five years ago, remembering what they did, I did it at Notre\nDame. I had a program [there] for two years in a row called Classic Coppin. And\nI just had some of my voice students do a program out there and we did that, we\ndid some things from Arabella and from The Music Man. It was fun.\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: I remember that faintly, and I never really went down and\nchecked, but it seems that as far as a piano degree, I don't remember a Black\nperson being there [at Peabody] before me.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: You were the first.\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: Was I the first? Okay. I always thought that I could have been.\nBut the thing that I remember is people who couldn't go there. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=1140.0,1200.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I met, at the\nMetropolitan Church -- Paul Brent. What an intelligent and what a wonderful musician.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Yeah, he was the first. He had just come back from Okinawa,\nbeing in the army. He was a music education person. I have to double-check that.\nHe was a lifetime teacher. Very successful as a teacher.\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: And very, very good. I remember one time I was substituting for\nsomebody, and I thought I was going to be among wolves or something. I was\ngrading papers, and I heard somebody give pitches. I was in Polytechnic High\nSchool, and there was a musical festival. I looked up, he had given the pitches\nto this group. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=1200.0,1260.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I mean, it was so musical. I wasn't even looking up, and I said,\n\"Oh, who's this?\" And there he was. And I remember there was this little man,\nhis name was Mr. Kerr. He would come up on the balcony at Metropolitan Methodist\nChurch on Lanvale Street where I lived and bring me music.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: T. Henderson Kerr?\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: Yes! Who graduated from Howard in 1908, and whose son, Thomas\nKerr, could not go -- [Kerr Sr.] said, you know, \"They wouldn't let my son into\nPeabody, so I sent him to Rochester, and the man said, 'Well, play something for\nme.' And halfway through, my boy played so well, the man had to stop him. He\nsaid he didn't even ask him his name. He just had to stop him because he played\nso well.\" And Mr. Kerr [Jr.] got two degrees from Eastman. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=1260.0,1320.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And so when I came\nthrough, he was head of the piano department at Howard.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Wait. We're going to finish this story on tape.\n\n[PRESSING BUTTONS ON TAPE RECORDER]\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: Oh, no, I don't mind. We can take a rest and do this another\ntime. Anything else you want to know, I'm fine.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: I don't want to lose this story. Okay.\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: Well, I didn't pay much attention to the fact that Mr. Kerr was\nthe head of the piano department. I respected him and I knew that he was such a\nwonderful pianist. When I was getting ready to give my recitals, I went to\nWashington and gave them at Howard first. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=1320.0,1380.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And so he let me play both of my\nrecitals -- I played in Room 301. It's like North Hall is to us, to the Peabody\npeople. I went over there and played for the people that had taught me when I\nwas a teenager.\n\nAnd I have to tell this ugly story. When I got ready to go to Peabody to\naudition, I had -- not an altercation, but my teacher said something to me that\nI didn't like. He was a friend of mine, but he said something that was\nquestionable, so I just got up from the piano, and I said, \"Thank you very much,\nbut I'll do the rest of this by myself.\" So I prepared that summer by myself.\nAnd so that I wouldn't have to be at home and be interrupted, I just went where\nI knew that I could practice, which was at Howard University, where I had spent\nfour years in the Preparatory School.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=1380.0,1440.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Well, I went there, and I was practicing this music. I think it was the Mozart I\nwas doing then. My teacher, her name was Camille Nickerson, a very fine Creole\nfolklorist, and she arranged Creole folk songs, and she used to give concerts.\nThere are books, not written about her, but she has music included. She came\ninto the practice room and put me out. She put me out of the practice room.\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=1440.0,1500.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"There was no one up there, no one. Because I was not a student at Howard\nUniversity. That's how unbending she was, and she was my teacher when I was\nfifteen through seventeen. She taught me. I was two years with her and two years\nwith one of her students, Alfreda Grant, who was wonderful. [Nickerson] just\nnever was a terribly warm person. I don't know what it was. She was just unbending.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: We have our rules.\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: That's it. Can you imagine that? She was good. I mean, she\ntaught me some things. But I never got over that. But I mean it when I say never\ngot over it. I saw her about thirty years later. She was like this [inaudible].\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=1500.0,1560.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I said, well, somebody will help you.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Well, did you get to know the elder Mr. Kerr?\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: Yes, I did. Oh, I was playing for him one day. I would go by his\nhouse and he would say, \"I'm getting so old and frail.\" I guess he was in his\nnineties. He said, \"I've got to use a sponge to hold this violin up on this\nskinny neck that I've got. And my boy comes over here, and he just plays what he\nknows because he can't read anymore because he's blind. He got that from his\nmother.\" He had glaucoma and his mother had been blind completely. Graduated\nfrom Howard in 1908.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: He led a jazz band to get himself through school.\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: Isn't that fabulous?\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: He was one of the society band leaders in Baltimore.\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: Really?\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=1560.0,1620.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Mr. Kerr used to go sit up in the balcony at Ford's Theatre\nwhen a new show would come to town, and he would take down the new tunes,\nmusical dictation, and then he would go home and arrange them for his band. And\nhis group was the first to have the new tunes out.\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: Really?\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: And Mr. Kerr advertised that he had a respectful society dance\ngroup, the T. Henderson Kerr Orchestra, and they did not play jazz. They only\nplayed respectable music. No jazz.\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: Oh really? Is that what he said? And you know he has a patented\ncough medicine called Kerr's Killer Cough. When I lived over on Whittier Avenue,\nMr. Kerr's sister, the older Kerr's daughter, came by doing the Mothers March\n[fundraiser] or something. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=1620.0,1680.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"You turn your outside lights on. I remember she was a\nvery fine teacher. I hadn't heard of her in a while. But I said, \"Oh, you're\nThomas Kerr's sister.\" She went, \"I beg your pardon. He's my brother.\" [Laughter]\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Well, he is quite an amazing person. A gentleman I would have\nloved to have met.\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: Oh, he was wonderful. And can you imagine, I used to catch a\ntrain to Washington every day to go to school. And I'd go over there sometime,\nand class would be canceled or something, and I used to come all the way back\nover here. But he was a wonderful person.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Well, this city is certainly full of a lot of interesting\nmusical characters, isn't it?\n\nMAURICE MURPHY: [Laughs] Yes, indeed. Well, that's interesting to know that I'm\nthe first that graduated [in piano]. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=1680.0,1740.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470/transcript/39159/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And then Audrey [McCallum] was in there,\nI'm pretty sure, because didn't we graduate the same year? I think we did.\n\n[END OF INTERVIEW]","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44159/file/117470#t=1740.0,1800.0"}]}]}]}