American art song composer Juliana Hall specializes in creating vocal works: “glistening, poignant music” (Gramophone), “complex in conception and construction” (Planet Hugill, London) with “graceful, nuanced vocal lines” (Opera News).
Hall’s more than 60 song cycles, monodramas, and vocal chamber works have been described as “brilliant” (Washington Post), “beguiling” (The Times, London), and “the most genuinely moving music of the afternoon” (Boston Globe) — “masterful writing in every respect” (NATS Journal of Singing).
Hall attended the Yale School of Music as a graduate student, studying composition with Frederic Rzewski, Leon Kirchner, and Martin Bresnick, receiving her masters degree in 1987. Following Yale she moved to Minneapolis to study with renowned vocal composer Dominick Argento.
— Dominick Argento
Shortly after arriving in Minnesota later in 1987, she wrote a song cycle as a first commission for soprano Dawn Upshaw. The piece received both popular and critical acclaim, with performances across America and around the world. In 1989, Hall was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition, as well as her second commission for a song cycle for Metropolitan Opera baritone David Malis.
Since completing her studies, Hall has composed works for dozens of singers, including vocal luminaries Brian Asawa, Stephanie Blythe, Molly Fillmore, Anthony Dean Griffey, Zachary James, Randall Scarlata, and Kitty Whately.
— Stephanie Blythe
In discussing her long-time career interest in writing vocal music, Hall shares that, “I have rarely gone a day without some sort of text in my mind, primarily poems, but also diaries, fables, letters, play texts, and sacred writings. Great writers illuminate beauty, truth, and magic present in even the smallest of things in our world, and since song is all about text, it is those writers’ insights I wish to share in my songs.”
. . . read more about Juliana Hall
— Margo Garrett
— Washington Post
40@40 is GRAMMY NOMINATED — Soprano Laura Strickling and pianist Daniel Schlosberg recorded 20 songs by 20 composers, including “TWO OLD CROWS” by JULIANA HALL — More info at Bright Shiny Things. Winners announced in February.
Grateful for the many wonderful performers who bring my music to the world through so many recent and future performances.
December 3, 2023 — CANCELED — Rochester, New York
Tenor Anthony Dean Griffey & pianist Warren Jones will perform “The Mystic Trumpeter”
December 7, 2023 : Antwerp, Belgium
Soprano Françoise Vanhecke will perform selections from “In Spring” – songs for unaccompanied Soprano at the Wouter De Bruycker Fine Arts & Gallery
December 8, 2023 : London, England
English horn player Nicola Hands and pianist Lana Bode of London’s Tailleferre Ensemble will perform “Rilke Song” at St. John’s Church at Lansdowne Crescent, London
December 16, 2023 : Madison, Wisconsin
Mezzo-soprano Madison Barrett & pianist Thomas Kasdorf will perform the premiere of a new mezzo version of the song cycle “Winter Windows” (originally for baritone)
Date tba : University of North Texas, Denton, Texas
Baritone Christopher Rodriguez & pianist Stephen Dubberly will perform the premiere of a new baritone version of a James Joyce song, “At That Hour When All Things Have Repose” (originally for contralto)
January 25, 2024 : Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH
Soprano Carol Dusdieker & pianist Jeff Manchur will perform “Cameos”
March 7-9, 2024 : Music by Women Festival, Columbus, Mississippi
Soprano Susan Boddie & oboist Will Wise will perform “Bells and Grass”
Some Things Are Dark
Dawn Upshaw soprano : Margo Garrett piano
At That Hour When All Things Have Repose
Stephanie Blythe mezzo-soprano : Alan Louis Smith piano
The Mystic Trumpeter
Anthony Dean Griffey tenor : Warren Jones piano
Dream
Susan Narucki soprano : Donald Berman piano
Ahab
Zachary James bass-baritone : Charity Wicks piano
Lawn As White As Driven Snow
Darryl Taylor countertenor : Juliana Hall piano
Death’s Echo
Richard Lalli baritone : Juliana Hall piano
Godiva
Kitty Whately mezzo-soprano : Joseph Middleton piano
I have an amazing publisher, the E. C. Schirmer Music Company. “Buffalo Dusk” (song on Carl Sandburg), “The Mystic Trumpeter” (setting based on Walt Whitman), and “Peace on Earth” (song on William Carlos Williams) were recently published, bringing the list of my published works to 55.
To obtain any of my vocal compositions, check out E. C. Schirmer.