Samuel Murray

Lecturer in Music, University of Liverpool
Dr Sam Murray is a lecturer in music industries joining to cover for Dr Sarah Price who is on research leave. Alongside this role he is a lecturer in music business and arts management at Middlesex University, which he joined at the end of 2019 following his work as a Policy & Research Officer for UK Music, the main campaigning and lobbying group for the music industries in the UK. He has also previously worked with the Council of Music Makers.

He has previously been a research associate at Teesside University on the Creative Fuse North East project, and a research assistant at Cardiff University as part of Creative Cardiff.

He also previously worked for UK Music as a Policy & Research Officer working on their Music by Numbers Report as well as regional city reports exmaining music-making in Manchester and Sheffield. He also worked on policy research in support of reducing business rates for grassroots music venues, changes to the visa system to benefit musicians and improving support for the live music industry in Wales.

For over 10 years Sam has played Clarinet with the touring band Me and My Friends and has released three albums Beneath a Level Head (2012), Hide Your Way (2016), Look Up! (2018) and Before I Saw the Sea (2023) with the band. The band have performed on BBC Radio 4's Loose Ends Programme, featured on french station Radio Nova's compilations NovaTunes 3.5 and 3.9 and have performed at many of the UK's biggest festivals including Greenman, Shambala and Kendall Calling.

Sam's research has specialised in examining music policy, particularly within music cities. For his PhD he undertook extensive ethnographic research exploring the music scene in Portland, Oregon and exmaining the impact of local policy making. He also co-authored Mapping Cardiff's Creative Economy a report into the state of the creative industries in the Welsh capital. He project managed ground-breaking innovation pilots for Teesside University as part of Creative Fuse North East and worked on successful innovation projects such as Unfolding Theatre's Multiverse Arcade debuted at the Great Exhibition of the North in 2018.

His research has appeared in City, Culture & Society as well as the Green European Journal. He has also been part of the music education advisory group for the Senedd Culture, Welsh Language and Communications committee resulting in the Hitting the Right Note Inquiry into funding for and access to music education report and recently appeared before the committee to give evidence to their Live Music Inquiry.

More recently he has published chapters on The Kingsmen's 'Louie Louie', Céline Dion's performer-audience interactions in her Las Vegas residency and has forthcoming work on teaching methodologies in music industry studies.