Early years and personal life Muhly was born in
Vermont to Bunny Harvey, a painter and teacher at
Wellesley College, and Frank Muhly, a documentary filmmaker. Muhly was raised in
Providence, Rhode Island, and sang in the choir at Grace Episcopal Church in Providence. He began studying piano at age 10. He graduated from the former in 2003 with a Bachelor of Arts in English and received a
Master's degree in music in 2004 from Juilliard, where he studied composition with
John Corigliano and
Christopher Rouse. In 2014, Muhly told the
New York Times that he lived on the
Lower East Side of
Manhattan in New York City with his boyfriend of several years, Ben Wyskida, a political consultant. He wrote about his mental-health problems in 2015.
Career As a first-year master's student at Juilliard at age 22, Muhly began working for
Philip Glass as an archivist, and later an editor, conductor, and keyboardist, for eight years. Muhly worked in collaboration with
Björk on the DVD single "
Oceania" in 2004; in 2005, he was commissioned by Colorado Academy, a private school in Colorado, to write a song for the opening of their Fine Arts building. In 2006, he scored the series finale for the
MTV2 comedy show
Wonder Showzen. That same year, he released his first album of works, titled
Speaks Volumes. In 2008, his second album was released, titled
Mothertongue. In a 2007 interview with Molly Sheridan on
NewMusicBox, Muhly explained that while he considers himself a classical music composer, that does not preclude his working in a variety of musical genres: "It's essentially like being from somewhere. I feel like I'm very proudly from the classical tradition. It's like being from
Nebraska. Like you are from there if you're from there. It doesn't mean that you can't have a productive life somewhere else. The notion of your genre being something that you have to actively perform, I think is pretty vile." In 2009, Muhly did choral and string quartet arrangements for four of the songs on
Brooklyn-based indie rock band
Grizzly Bear's third album,
Veckatimest, and he worked with
Antony and the Johnsons on the albums
The Crying Light and
Swanlights. In 2009 Muhly was co-commissioned with
Valgeir Sigurdsson by Works and Process at the Guggenheim to compose the music for
Green Aria, A ScentOpera, created and directed by Stewart Matthew, that featured scents as dramatis personae that were streamed from "scent microphones." Muhly worked on two commissions for the UK-based
Britten Sinfonia, performed in January and February 2010. Gilmore International Keyboard Festival commissioned "Drones & Piano" for pianist
Bruce Brubaker, which premiered in May 2010. Muhly's opera
Two Boys, a collaboration with
librettist Craig Lucas and directed by
Bartlett Sher, premiered in June 2011 at the
English National Opera and made its
Metropolitan Opera debut on October 21, 2013. According to a 2008
New York Times article, the opera is based on a late-1990s British case involving a 14-year-old boy taking on the
online identity of women to try to get someone to kill him, without success. In 2013, he toured with
Glen Hansard. They performed together with the
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in
Eindhoven and
Amsterdam. His 2008 musical collaboration,
Confessions, with Faroese singer-songwriter
Teitur was released in 2016 by
Nonesuch Records. Muhly contributed to the 2018 re-recording of
David Bowie's 1987 album
Never Let Me Down. Muhly composed the musical score for the
Paris Opera Ballet's production of
Clear, Loud, Bright, Forward choreographed by
Benjamin Millepied. It was featured in the 2015 film
Reset. In 2020 Muhly completed a "virtual premiere" for the
San Francisco Symphony during the COVID-19 pandemic, titled
Throughline. The 19-minute piece features eight collaborative artists selected by Music Director
Esa-Pekka Salonen. Muhly also composed and recorded
Trombone Phrases for
Sound World’s Coronavirus Fund for Freelance Musicians, a project supporting struggling musicians during the UK's COVID-19 lockdown. It was released by Sound World as part of the album
Reflections (credited to Sound World and the
Bristol Ensemble) alongside specially written pieces by other composers such as
Gavin Bryars,
Mark-Anthony Turnage,
Evelyn Glennie and
Sally Beamish. His composition for full choir and 12 guitars
How Little You Are for Conspirare Company of Voices, Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, Dublin Guitar Quartet and Texas Guitar Quartet commissioned by Texas Performing Arts at The University of Texas at Austin was released on Conspiriare's 2020 album
The Singing Guitar. In 2021 his composition
Shrink appeared on Violinist
Pekka Kuusisto's album
First Light released by Pentatone. Muhly has worked closely with the British vocal ensemble
The Tallis Scholars, who in 2022 premiered a substantial, 25-minute choral work,
No Resting Place, to verses from the
Lamentations. In 2023, he composed
A Glorious Creature for the ensemble. His concerto for two pianos and orchestra,
In Certain Circles, premiered in 2021 and made its American debut in 2022 with the
New York Philharmonic. In 2025
Marin Alsop and the New York Philharmonic with violinist
Renaud Capuçon premiered Muhly's Violin Concerto (2024) at
David Geffen Hall at
Lincoln Center. ==Compositions and projects==