Cullyn Murphy leads students to discover and engage with music through creative projects, collaboration, and performance. He teaches music theory, composition/songwriting, and directs MULTI–a new multidisciplinary ensemble where students of any creative practice will create and perform new pieces and installations to be presented as an ensemble.

In his compositional work, he focuses on amplifying the already existent musical components of sight, taste, touch, and smell in order to gain access to different modes of storytelling through music. His work revisits his rock band roots in communal music-making by creating music that interacts with different varieties of performer input through unconventional notation and co-composition. Cullyn’s music has been described as “theatrical,” “riveting and inventive,” and “push[ing] the idea of what music and musical organization is.” (Composer’s Toolbox)

Cullyn performs live video processing and electronics with avant-garde country band Horace Whisper & the Empty Hand as well as theatrically driven experimental music with AmiEnsemble. Recently Cullyn’s work has focused on creating extramusical objects to accompany his compositions such as a retro video game program note, AI-produced radio broadcast, Instagram Augmented Reality Filter, and performer-created postcards. His piece “everywhere all ways” written for Unheard-of//Ensemble won the Dead Elf Award and the 2022 CreArtBox Call for Scores.