Bio

Tamara Murphy, bassist/composer/educator is based in Melbourne, Australia. She has been flat out for over 20 years, leading her own bands and performing with countless others.

She has released 10 albums as leader (or co-leader) and appears on over 30 recordings by other artists. She’s toured all around the world, performing in Japan, China, Europe, the UK and New York as well as Australia.

Currently, Tamara Murphy performs with Kate Miller-Heidke, Ali McGregor, Harry Angus, Clio Renner, Andrea Keller, Nat Bartsch, Paul Grabowsky and Stephen Magnusson and many more artists in addition to her own band, Spirograph Studies.

She ran her quintet Murphy’s Law for 14 years, releasing four albums and was a member of Keller-Murphy-Browne (with Andrea Keller and Allan Browne), releasing two albums. She also performs and composes for other projects. Her albums have been nominated for The Age Genre Music Awards, AIR awards and The Bell Awards.

Murphy was awarded the inaugural PBS Young Elder of Jazz Commission in 2011 and her compositions have appeared on albums by other artists, including vocalist Elly Hoyt, ATM15 Big Band, pianist Tony Gould and saxophonist Rob Burke. In the last few years, she has worked as a musical director and arranger for the Brunswick Music Festival and Monash University’s MLIVE Progress Festival. In 2019, she was shortlisted for the National Live Music Awards (Best Jazz Act).

In 2019 her band, Spirograph Studies, toured around Australia and New Zealand to support the release of their debut album, Kindness Not Courtesy (shortlisted for a Music Vic Award). Their second album Lowlights was released in October 2021.

In the lockdown of 2020, Tamara Murphy started an interview series entitled ‘Flipped Interviews’. This fun series of interviews features male musicians being asked questions previously given to female musicians. It’s a cheeky, yet inclusive way to highlight the different ways men and women are treated in our industry. Previous interviewees include Paul Grabowsky, Harry James Angus and Scott Tinker.