Jazz Articles about Alex Astbury

About Alex Astbury

Album Review

Olivia Murphy: Fateful Birds & Fledgling Stories

Read "Fateful Birds & Fledgling Stories" reviewed by Jerome Wilson

by Jerome Wilson
June 10, 2026

Olivia Murphy is a young composer and bandleader who has been establishing herself as a distinctive voice on the British jazz scene, leading a large ensemble that mostly performs her own compositions. She makes her orchestral recording debut on this album, which applies her musical ideas to themes of transformation and community derived from mythical portraits of birds. One of the most notable features of Murphy's writing is that she often does not separate her orchestra into individual ...

Album Review

Olivia Murphy: Fateful Birds & Fledgling Stories

Read "Fateful Birds & Fledgling Stories" reviewed by John Eyles

by John Eyles
May 16, 2026

Throughout her career, Olivia Murphy has receiyed many awards which have been instrumental in promoting her blossoming career. In 2021, she received the prestigious and influential Peter Whittingham Jazz Development Award, which has been contested annually since 1990 to support an emerging jazz musician with their plans and ambitions. At the time she won it, Murphy was playing clarinet in the Moonrise Trio alongside vocalist Becca Wilkins and pianist Olly Chalk. In 2020, the trio's first EP, Tomorrow ...