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

Matthew Hall performs on the harpsichord, organ, clavichord, and fortepiano as a solo recitalist and chamber music collaborator. His interpretation of Bach has been 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 2013 his recording of the C. P. E. Bach piano quartets with Sarah Darling (viola) and Sarah Paysnick (traverso) was released on the Ad Parnassum label.

Matthew studied music and linguistics at Harvard, completed a master’s degree in musicology at the University of Leeds (UK) on a Fulbright Scholarship while holding an organ scholarship at Leeds Cathedral, and completed a second master’s degree in harpsichord and organ performance under Peter Sykes at Boston University. He is now a Ph.D. candidate in musicology at Cornell University. His research areas include J. S. Bach and his early reception, keyboard pedagogy in the eighteenth century and theories of counterpoint, and Renaissance studies. He was recently awarded the Irene Alm Memorial Prize by the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music. He also cultivates an expertise in 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). He has published articles in Understanding Bach, Eighteenth-Century Music, and The Journal of the Alamire Foundation.

In addition to his performing and scholarly activities, Matthew is also the founder and executive director of Ad Parnassum, Inc., a non-profit organization which seeks to engage the public in early music and other classical music idioms in ways that go beyond the traditional concert-going experience, concerns which were fostered through his teaching at The Cambridge Center for Adult Education. As a freelance writer Matthew has contributed to Harpsichord & Fortepiano magazine and Early Music Performer. He also worked as an editorial assistant at the Packard Humanities Institute, Cambridge, publishers of C.P.E. Bach: The Complete Works.

Short form:

Matthew Hall performs on the harpsichord, organ, clavichord, and fortepiano. He has received praise for his “lively and adventurous” playing and “eloquent virtuosity” (Boston Musical Intelligencer). He studied music and linguistics at Harvard; completed a master’s degree in musicology at the University of Leeds (UK) on a Fulbright Scholarship while holding an organ scholarship at Leeds Cathedral; and most recently earned a master’s in harpsichord and organ performance at Boston University under Peter Sykes. He is now a Ph.D. candidate in musicology at Cornell University