Michael Hall has appeared as both performer and teacher across Europe and the United States.  He recently gave the world premiere performance of “Elegia: in memoriam John Paul II” (2005) by renowned composer Marta Ptaszynska, at the 33rd International Viola Congress in Reykjavik, Iceland.  Hall has been invited to present the New York City premiere of “Elegia” on the New Music Now series at New York University.  In July 2005, Hall performed and taught in Italy at the Positano International Chamber Music Festival and appeared on the ‘Concerti di Cucomella’ Recital Series in Sorrento, Italy. 

Michael Hall is currently President of the Chicago Viola Society and Professor of Viola at Illinois Wesleyan University and VanderCook College of Music. He has given the Chicago premieres of Alfred Schnittke’s Monologue and Stephen Paulus’ Exotic Etudes as soloist with the University of Chicago New Music Ensemble. His most recent solo performances include Telemann’s Concerto, Britten’s Lachrymae, and Eric Whitacre’s Five Hebrew Love Songs for viola and chorus, and appearing as a recitalist at the 32nd International Viola Congress in Minneapolis. Recent performances also include appearing on the Chicago Cultural Center Lunchbreak Series and the First Methodist Church of Chicago Noontime Recital Series.  A champion of new music, future projects will feature the premieres of commissions by Mario Pelusi and Michelle McQuade.  Also dedicated to the education of young violists, Hall is initiating a composition contest sponsored by the Chicago Viola Society in order to encourage the creation of high-quality, student-level viola literature.

For seven years Hall was a member of the Lake String Quartet, Ensemble-in-Residence at Yellowstone National Park. Also an avid participant in summer festivals, he has performed in the Grand Teton Festival, the National Orchestral Institute, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music School, and the Aspen Music Festival, where he was a winner in the Indiana-Aspen Concerto Competition. Hall has also performed guest recitals at numerous universities and has been featured on National Public Radio’s “Live From Studio A,” (WFDD).  He has performed with the Chicago Opera Theater, Ravinia Festival Orchetsra, Chicago’s Symphony II, Chicago Jazz Ensemble, the Contemporary Chamber Players, and the Charlotte, Illinois, and North Carolina symphonies, as well as the new music ensemble Noamnesia. 

Hall received his B.M. from Ball State University and his M.M. from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, where he made several recordings with the Cincinnati Philharmonia and the Contemporary Music Ensemble under the Delos, Centaur, Vienna Modern Masters, and Acoma labels.  After receiving his D.M.A. from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro [with a dissertation entitled “Polystylism and Structural Unification in the Alfred Schnittke Viola Concerto: A Performer’s Guide”], Hall joined the faculty of VanderCook College of Music, Chicago, taught at the University of Chicago as a chamber music coach and as Assistant Director of Educational Outreach, and recently joined the faculty of the Chicago Academy for the Arts. In 2003, Hall was awarded a Neighborhood Arts Program Grant from the City of Chicago in 2003.  This grant allowed him to develop the “Young Composer’s Project,” a program combining the concepts of multiple intelligences with music to teach over 150 urban elementary school students creative writing, the basic building blocks of music, and composition via iconographic notation. Hall serves as a strong advocate for viola research, having published articles in both the Journal of the American Viola Society and the Chicago Viola Society Newsletter.  He previously served on the faculties at Guilford College (NC) and the Greensboro Music Academy.  Chamber music teachers include the Tokyo Quartet, Henry Meyer, Arthur Balsam, Roman Totenburg, and Michelle Mikarski.  His primary viola teachers include Michelle LaCourse, Scott Rawls, Peter Kamnitzer, Linda Geidel, and Keith Conant.