Emily Hall (born 1978) is a composer of

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...

electronica Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that started in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mostly used to r ...

and

song A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetitio ...

s. Her music has been performed by the

Duke Quartet The Duke Quartet is a contemporary string quartet based in Europe. Its members are Louisa Fuller (violin), Rick Koster (violin), John Metcalfe (viola), and Sophie Harris (cello). This quartet specialises in contemporary music, and its repertoir ...

, the

London Symphony Orchestra The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London. Founded in 1904, the LSO is the oldest of London's orchestras, symphony orchestras. The LSO was created by a group of players who left Henry Wood's Queen's ...

, the

Brodsky Quartet The Brodsky Quartet is a British string quartet, formed in Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, in 1972 as the "Cleveland Quartet". Only Ian Belton and Jacqueline Thomas remain as original members. In addition to performing classical music, and in par ...

, the

London Sinfonietta The London Sinfonietta is an English contemporary chamber orchestra founded in 1968 and based in London. The ensemble has headquarters at Kings Place and is Resident Orchestra at the Southbank Centre. Since its inaugural concert in 1968—givi ...

, and the

Philharmonia The Philharmonia Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It was founded in 1945 by Walter Legge, a classical music record producer for EMI. Among the conductors who worked with the orchestra in its early years were Richard Strauss, W ...

; it has been broadcast on

BBC Radio 3 BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, Radio drama, drama, High culture, culture and the arts ...

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

and

France Culture France Culture is a French public radio channel and part of Radio France. Its programming encompasses a wide variety of features on historical, philosophical, sociopolitical, and scientific themes (including debates, discussions, and documentari ...

Roxanna Panufnik Roxanna Panufnik (born 24 April 1968) is a British composer of Polish heritage. She is the daughter of the composer and conductor Sir Andrzej Panufnik and his second wife Camilla, née Jessel. Panufnik was born in London. She attended Bedales ...

said of her (and 21st century female classical composers in general): "Hip young things like

Tansy Davies Tansy Davies (born 29 May 1973, Bristol) is an English composer of contemporary classical music. She won the BBC Young Composers' Competition in 1996 and has written works for ensembles such as the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Or ...

and Emily Hall will exert a great influence on the new music scene in the next ten years."

Biography

Hall read music at the University of York then studied orchestration with Yan Maresz in Paris. She studied with

Julian Anderson Julian Anderson (born 6 April 1967) is a British composer and teacher of composition. Biography Anderson was born in London. He studied at Westminster School, then with John Lambert at the Royal College of Music, with Alexander Goehr at Cambri ...

for her Masters in Composition at the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music is a music school, conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the Undergraduate education, undergraduate to the Doctorate, doctoral level in a ...

. She is a founding member of c3, the Camberwell Composers Collective. Hall is a member of

Bedroom Community A commuter town is a populated area that is primarily residential rather than commercial or industrial. Routine travel from home to work and back is called commuting, which is where the term comes from. A commuter town may be called by many o ...

, an

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

record label A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the produ ...

/collective. Her music is formed from close relationships with singers and writers and she seeks her own ways of using technology and live performance. Hall has received the ''

Paul Hamlyn Foundation Paul Hamlyn Foundation is a registered charity, and a company limited by guarantee which has been established in its current form since 2004, succeeding an earlier incarnation that was founded in 1987, which itself formalised established philanthr ...

Award for Artists'' (2013), the ''Genesis Opera Prize'' (2006) and the ''

Royal Philharmonic Society The Royal Philharmonic Society (RPS) is a British music society, formed in 1813. Its original purpose was to promote performances of instrumental music in London. Many composers and performers have taken part in its concerts. It is now a memb ...

Composition Award'' (2005). The world premiere of her opera ''Sante'' took place on Wednesday 24 May 2006, co-produced by Aldeburgh Productions and the London Sinfonietta, directed by Tim Supple. It utilised African melody and rhythm. Her one-act opera '' Found and Lost'' premiered in January 2016 at the Corinthia Hotel in London. ''Folie à Deux'' (2015) is a collaboration with Icelandic writer and long-time

Björk Björk Guðmundsdóttir ( , ; born 21 November 1965), known mononymously as Björk, is an Icelandic singer, songwriter, composer, record producer, and actress. Noted for her distinct three-octave vocal range and eccentric persona, she has de ...

collaborator

Sjón image:Sjon litteratureXchange-2019 DSC09264.jpg, 260px, Sjón at LiteratureXchange Festival ín Aarhus (Denmark 2019) Sigurjón Birgir Sigurðsson (born 27 August 1962), known as Sjón ( ; ; meaning "sight" and being an abbreviation of his firs ...

. It is conceived both as a

concept album A concept album is an album whose tracks hold a larger purpose or meaning collectively than they do individually. This is typically achieved through a single central narrative or theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, or lyrical. Som ...

and an opera and utilises a newly created instrument called the electro-magnetic harp which uses vibrating magnets.

Works

Vocal music

*''Befalling'' (song cycle): 20 minutes. Commissioned by Faster than Sound. First performance: Robert Murray and Malcom Martineau, June 2007, Aldeburgh Church *A Simple Neo-Georgian Summer setting of Toby Litt. Recorded by NMC *5 new songs for Baritone: 20 minutes. First performance: Paul Carey Jones, September 2010, Grimsby St Hugh's Festival *''Life Cycle'' (song cycle): 45 minutes. Commissioned by Opera North. First performance: Mara Carlyle, Oliver Coates and John Reid, March 2011,

Southbank Centre Southbank Centre is a complex of artistic venues in London, England, on the South Bank of the River Thames (between Hungerford Bridge and Waterloo Bridge). It comprises three main performance venues (the Royal Festival Hall including the Nat ...

*3 new songs for Matt Sharp after ''

Dichterliebe ''Dichterliebe'', "A Poet's Love" (composed 1840), is the best-known song cycle by Robert Schumann (Opus number, Op. 48). The texts for the 16 songs come from the ''Lyrisches Intermezzo'' by Heinrich Heine, written in 1822–23 and published as pa ...

''. First performance: Matthew Sharp, February 2012, Astor Theatre, Deal *''Rest'' (song cycle): 45 minutes. First performance: Lady Maisery, June 2013, Hoxton Hall (

Spitalfields Music Spitalfields Music (previously known as Spitalfields Festival, officially registered as Spitalfields Festival Ltd) is a music charity based in the Bethnal Green area of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Through musical events, the charity hop ...

Summer Festival) *''The Bells of Aberdovey''. Commissioned by the

. First performance: London Sinfonietta, May 2015, Southbank Centre *''We are passengers''. Commissioned by Spitalfields Music. First performance: Women sing East, June 2015, Shoreditch Church (Spitalfields Music Summer Festival) *''Veins'' (2020). Commissioned by BBC for the

BBC Singers The BBC Singers are a British chamber choir, and the professional chamber choir of the BBC. One of the six BBC Performing Groups, the BBC Singers are based at the BBC's Maida Vale Studios in London. The only full-time professional British c ...

Opera

*''Sante'': 70 minutes. First performance: Aldeburgh Productions/London Sinfonietta, May 2006, LSO St Luke's *''The Nightingale and the Rose'': 9 minutes. Commissioned by Streetwise Opera. First performance: December 2010, Shoreditch Church (Spitalfields Music Winter Festival) *''Folie à Deux'': 50 minutes. Commissioned by Mahogany Opera Group. First performance: March 2015, Bergen, Norway (Borealis Festival) * '' Found and Lost''. Premiered in January and February 2016 at the

Corinthia Hotel London The Corinthia Hotel London, at the corner of Northumberland Avenue and Whitehall Place in central London, is a hotel and former Government of the United Kingdom, British Government building, located on a triangular site between Trafalgar Square ...

, where Hall was artist in residence.Richard Morrison, "It's not over till the fat lady checks out", ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'' Arts pages, 29 January 2016, p. 13

String quartets

*''time back for time given'': 5 minutes. First performance: Duke Quartet, June 2004, Cheltenham Music Festival *''braid'': 6 minutes. First performance: Brodsky Quartet, July 2007,

Lichfield Cathedral Lichfield Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in Lichfield, Staffordshire, England, one of only three cathedrals in the United Kingdom with three spires (together with Truro Cathedral and St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh), and the only medie ...

(Lichfield Festival) *''from listening to trees'': 11 minutes. First performance: Barbirolli Quartet, October 2008, Haslemere

Orchestral

*''Plinth'': 5.5 minutes. First performance:

, November 2007, Barbican *''Put Flesh On!'' (cello, electronics and orchestra): 12 minutes. First performance: London Contemporary Orchestra, Oliver Coates and Sound Intermedia, October 2008

Instrumental

*''Chatelet'': 5 minutes. First performance: November 2003, Southbank Centre *''no currency'' (piano): 6.5 minutes. First performance: Sarah Nichols, June 2006, Blue Elephant Theatre *''Put Flesh On!'' (cello and electronics): 8 minutes. First performance: Oliver Coates, June 2008, Faster than Sound *''Amnio'' (piano): 5 minutes. Commissioned by BBC Radio 3. First performance: Andrew Zolinsky, February 2009, BBC Radio 3 *''for zoe'' (cello): 5 minutes. First performance: Zoe Martlew, The Crypt Camberwell

Small chamber

*''join'': (bassoon or cor anglais and piano or flute and harp): 6 minutes. First performance: c3, 2004 *''cry baby'' (2 electric guitars): 5 minutes. First performance: c3, November 2005 *''how we begin to remember'' (trumpet, accordion, double bass): 6 minutes. First performance: c3, November 2006 *''hotel twiga'' (percussion and accordion): 5 minutes. First performance: c3, November 2006 *''26 horsepower'' (clarinet, viola, piano): 5 minutes. First performance: c3, November 2007

Large chamber

*''think about space'': 5 minutes. First performance: London Sinfonietta, 2005 *''26 Horsepower'': 6.5 minutes. First performance: St Paul's Sinfonia, November, 2007

Recordings

*''Befalling'' (2013) — Nearfield Music *''Folie à Deux'' (2015) —

References

External links

*
Norman Records
review of ''Folie a Deux'' *

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hall, Emily 1978 births Living people British women classical composers 21st-century classical composers Alumni of the Royal College of Music Alumni of the University of York 21st-century women composers