As a performer she has worked with Leroy Jenkins, Marvin "Hannibal" Peterson, Henry Threadgill,[1] Muhal Richard Abrams, James Brown, Julius Hemphill, Fred Hopkins, Jason Kao Hwang, and Archie Shepp, in addition to leading her ensembles, and has appeared on over 50 recordings as a cellist, composer, arranger and/or producer.
[2] Early composing for theater or music productions: a score for the inaugural concert at the Danny Kaye/Sylvia Fine Playhouse entitled "Five Minute Tango", performed by the Manhattan Brass Quintet; The Conversation for the Seattle-based New Performance Group at the Walker Art Center in Minnesota for the Music in Motion program; Flashes, a structured improvised collaboration with choreographer Blondell Cummings and musicians Jeanne Lee and Pauline Oliveros for the Firewall Festival 1993; and music for Helen Thorington's radio piece Dracula's Wives for broadcast: a tour of Flashes to the Taklos Festival in Switzerland; and, a dramatized version of Unending Pain, with text by Laurie Carlos, at P.S.
In 1998 Murray developed the jazz opera The Running Man, for which she wrote the original story, score, and book with collaborators Cornelius Eady and Diane Paulus.
Other projects include a collaboration with Carl Hancock Rux on The Blackamoor Angel, a full-length opera, a collaboration with Lynn Nottage on the musical Sweet Billy and the Zooloos; The Voice Within, an a cappella theater piece for ten voices with text by Marcus Gardley, at Aaron Davis Hall during a yearlong residency at Harlem Stages.
She adapted the music for Tony Award winning production of The Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, directed by Diane Paulus in 2012 which played at the Richard Rodgers Theater.