THE BEAT
The Making of a
Musician OU alumni Lexi Murray and Anthony Enos turned a dream into a reality. BY AYA CATHEY | PHOTOS BY ELLIE HABEL
“It would be awesome [to have a career in music] but the songwriting is more of my goal right now,” Murray says. “I love writing songs and experimenting with genres and arrangements. I think that comes from my experience in band and symphonic band. Whether I was playing the trumpet or being in a rock band, working with other people on arrangements was really cool to me.” She graduated with a dual degree in strategic communication and music production in December 2020. During her time as an undergraduate student, she was a member of several organizations, including the OU Audio Engineering Society (AES), OU Women In Media Industry (WIMI) and the OU Multimedia Society (OUMS). Murray took full advantage of her time at OU. In December 2019, she studied abroad through the OHIO Screenwriting and Documentary Storytelling program in Spain. As treasurer Lexi Murray is a singer, songwriter, and music of Turn It Gold, a nonprofit organization fighting to bring industry professional from Columbus, Ohio. awareness to childhood cancer, she has traveled to and volunteered in Houston, Texas. Additionally, Murray held two internships. She worked as a publicist for Kovert Creative, a communication, marketing, and entertainment firm in New York City, and more recently worked as a music assistant at Creative Control Entertainment, a music supervision agency in Los Angeles. During her time exi Murray has always had a love of music and at Creative Control, she was credited in several 2020 films, songwriting. She wrote her first song in the including Echo Boomers, Christmas in Vienna, Carlos second grade, played the piano and trumpet since Almaraz: Playing With Fire, and Feliz NaviDAD. elementary school and was in a band all through She was also a leader within her major. During her junior middle and high school. year, she successfully advocated for a baby grand piano to “The first song that I can remember writing was a shitty little be installed in the RTV studio of the Schoonover Center tune, but the music has always been in me,” Murray says. for Communications. Due to her efforts, countless music Murray is a singer, songwriter and music industry professional production students can easily access a piano and pursue their from Columbus, Ohio. She is an Ohio University alumnus music. In March 2020, Murray became the first student to and currently works as the PR Coordinator for the Guild of be inducted into the Dean’s Leadership Circle for her efforts Music Supervisors, a nonprofit with, according to its website, in acquiring the piano and her leadership roles in numerous “the mission to promote the craft of music supervision for the campus organizations. In November 2020, Murray performed mutual benefit of all media stakeholders in film, television, in the third annual Brick City Records Baker’s dozen concert games, advertising, trailers and emerging media.” series before graduating at the end of the semester. Murray aspires to be more directly involved in the music Murray is an experimental artist who doesn’t fit into a business. As a part of her studies at OU, she took classes focused single genre. She describes her style as pop overall, but more on the recording industry and they inspired her to pursue work accurately, alternative pop or soft rock. Her influences range in music production. Alongside songwriting, she is looking at from bands such as Journey and Mayday Parade to Sara professions in music supervision or licensing and copywriting.
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backdrop | Spring 2021
