In Loving Memory Of

Margaret Anne Murphey

The 2024-2025 season of the North Mississippi Symphony Orchestra is lovingly dedicated to the memory of Mrs. Margaret Anne Murphey. Margaret Anne was a founding member of the Tupelo Symphony Orchestra and a dynamic long-time Executive Director who assisted in the hiring of every Music Director in the orchestra’s history. Margaret Anne also established a campaign to raise the funds to purchase a Steinway Concert Grand piano, and regularly attended League of American Orchestras conferences to represent the orchestra to the nation and to engage exciting new soloists for performances in Tupelo. She helped create the many outreach performances of the orchestra for multiple communities throughout north Mississippi, resulting in the name change of the organization to the North Mississippi Symphony Orchestra. She helped establish the wonderfully successful Carnegie Hall Link Up education series that, since 2010, has been presented to over 50,000 students in northern Mississippi, and she established partnerships with the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and the Cleveland International Piano Competition to bring the winners of the competitions to perform with the orchestra in Tupelo, New Albany, and Oxford. These many audacious and selfless efforts were accomplished with Margaret Anne’s personal and powerful brand of charisma, charm, and indomitable spirit, and they helped to raise the profile and recognition of the orchestra locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally.

It is with deep gratitude and infinite appreciation that we dedicate the 2024-2025 season to

Mrs. Margaret Anne Murphey.