All artwork ©2023 Vincent Myrand
“Feinberg also joined forces with Gregory Hall for a spirited, improvisatory two-piano collaboration, using improvisation techniques developed by (Mr.) Hall” — Allan Kozinn, Portland Press Herald
Composer GREGORY HALL holds a B.A. degree in Music from the University of California. Santa Barbara (1982), and a Diploma degree from the Curtis Institute of Music (1986), where he studied with Ned Rorem. He is an elected member of the American Composers Alliance, and a Fellow of the Ucross Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. He also holds an M.E. Degree in Surveying Engineering from the University of Maine, Orono, ME.
He has participated in festivals and concerts by the American Composers Alliance, Music Teachers National Association, Society of Composers Inc., Maine Arts, Gamper Festival, Back Cove Contemporary Music Festival, and the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States. In 1991 he received a commission for the piece Hardanger Trio from the Music Teachers National Association. Mr. Hall was selected as “Maine Composer of the Year” in 1997 for the Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music. The orchestral work Arkadia was commissioned in 2000 by the Arcady Chamber Orchestra. In 2001 he was elected to the membership of the American Composers Alliance. In 2007 he had a 2-week residency at the Ucross Foundation, Ucross, WY. In 2013 he received a second commission from the Music Teachers National Association for the piece The Four Ranges. In 2017 his Templates for Improvisation Through Sight-Reading were included in the Massachusetts Innovation Nights Showcase, Norwood, MA. In 2018 the Ensemble Seven Seasons commissioned his Improvisation for Six. In 2023 his opera Marvelous was a finalist for the American Prize in Composition, Opera/Theater division. In 2024 Merissa Beddows received a $5000 grant from the Curtis Institute of Music, towards the production of Marvelous. In 2024 he had a 2-week residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Amherst, VA.
Water: 2 Poems of W.S. Merwin for Soprano and Orchestra appears in Vol. 15 of ERMMedia’s Masterworks of the New Era. Parma Recordings released his Variations on Ongiara on the CD Harmonious Dissonance, and his Quartet for saxophones on the CD Quartet at the Crossroads, and the solo CD Compositional Improvisations From ‘The Mysteria’.
Mr. Hall’s recordings and works have been reviewed numerous times: in the New Music Connoisseur, the New York Times, The American Record Guide, MusicWeb International, as well as the Portland (Maine) Press-Herald.
His fascination with songwriting–and combining contemporary opera and musicals–has resulted in the chamber opera “Marvelous,” based on the sequel book to L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a tale he has wanted to tell in his own fashion for decades.