Throwing this gig in at very short notice but hoping we can still get a reasonable audience for LA-based violinist, multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Chris Murphy. He's touring his latest album, "Songs from the Trees", produced in collaboration with Seth Lakeman. Anyone who's been to the Maverick Festival in recent years will be very familiar with him as he is everywhere there.

Murphy grew up in an Irish-Italian family near New York City, surrounded by the disparate sounds of his neighbors’ traditional music: Italian mandolin songs, pulsing Latin rhythms, and bracing Irish rounds. Eventually falling under the spell of late, great multi-instrumentalist David Lindley (Jackson Browne, Ry Cooder, Bob Dylan) Murphy went on to explore Turkish and Indian music at Bard College, and studied composition at Boston’s prestigious New England Conservatory of Music.

Since then, Murphy has hypnotized crowds in more than 40 US states, done extensive tours of England, Belgium and the Netherlands, and amassed a breathtakingly deep catalogue of over 500 works. His over 15 original albums boast A-list players from the Tom Waits band, Wilco, X, The Desert Rose Band, Elvis Costello and the Buena Vista Social Club.

“To me, music is liquid,” Murphy explains thoughtfully. “I’ll twist and turn, and hammer and mould, and shape, cut, and paste the music to create a fresh experience for my audience at all costs.”