Playing a Ruckers harpsichord at The Flint Collection, Wilmington, DE

Matthew Hall studied music and linguistics at Harvard, and completed his master’s degree in musicology at the University of Leeds (UK) on a Fulbright Scholarship with a dissertation on the keyboard music of Charles Dieupart. While in England he was Organ Scholar at Leeds Cathedral and performed with Leeds Baroque Orchestra. Now in Boston, he is Director of Music at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church, Waltham, and is pursuing doctoral studies in harpsichord at Boston University under Peter Sykes. He performs frequently in and around Boston as a solo harpsichord and organ recitalist and with the chamber ensemble Musical Offering.

Matthew served three seasons as artistic director of the Harvard Early Music Society, leading that group many performances including three fully-staged operas; he now maintains an advisory relationship with HEMS. He was also assistant conductor of the Amherst Early Music Festival Opera from 2009 to 2011.

Last season’s highlights include performances of Brandenburg 5 in Boston, a recital on the antique harpsichords of the Flint Collection in Wilmington, DE, and nine performances with SoHIP around greater Boston. His interpretation of Brandenburg 5 was praised as a “beautifully virtuosic soliloquy” delivered with “perfect elegance and control” (Arts First Review). He has also received praise for his “lively…and adventurous” playing (Boston Musical Intelligencer) and his “wonderful understanding of the  subtlety and expressive potential of the French style” (Arts Boston).

In addition to his performing activities, Matthew is an editorial assistant at the Packard Humanities Institute, Cambridge, publishers of C.P.E. Bach: The Complete Works. He also teaches courses on music history and repertoire at The Cambridge Center for Adult Education. He contributes to Harpsichord & Fortepiano magazine and Early Music Performer, and has published research in peer-reviewed journals. His research focuses on 17th- and 18th-century French language, rhetoric and declamatory style, especially as these inform musical interpretation. His recitations of Classic French texts have been called “luscious” (Boston Musical Intelligencer).