Charles John Hall
1925
- 2004
Charles Hall, music educator,
award-winning composer, and published author, enjoyed a music career that
spanned over forty years. He taught in five academies and at Andrews
University, where he also served as chair of the music department.
Hall was born in Houston,
Texas, on November 17, 1925, the son of John Eugene and Helen Ogarita Watters Hall. He graduated from Reagan High School
in Houston in 1942 and served in the U.S. army as a medic from 1944 to 1946.
Following his discharge, he attended Union College before transferring to
Emmanuel Missionary College, now Andrews University, where he completed a
B.Mus. degree in 1952.
He taught at Battle Creek
Academy for a year and then worked as an IBM data processor for a large company
in Houston before returning to music teaching at Sandia View Academy in New
Mexico, where he completed an M.Mus. at the University
of New Mexico in 1960. He subsequently taught at Sunnydale Academy and Kansas
City Junior Academy in Missouri before going to Michigan in 1962, where he
taught at Southfield Junior Academy and Cedar Lake Academy, now Great Lakes
Adventist Academy, until 1970.
While he had taken graduate
work earlier at the University of Missouri and Central Michigan University,
during his time at CLA, he completed a Ph.D. in music theory and composition in
1970 at Michigan State University. He began teaching at Andrews University that
year.
Hall was an award-winning
composer as well as a published writer. He received the Sigvald
Thompson Award in 1970 for Five Microscopics for Orchestra
and special mention in a Delius Competition. His works have been performed by
orchestras in Houston; Indianapolis; Fargo-Morehead, North Dakota; Elkhart and
South Bend, Indiana; and by the Southwest Michigan Symphony Orchestra. There
have also been numerous performances of his music for band and choir.
From 1981 to 1986, Hall
served as chair of the music program at AU. Following his retirement in 1991,
during and after teaching for 21 years at AU, Hall authored six books on music
chronology. The books, all published, grew out of
notes he had researched and written for a radio program, Hall's Musical Years,
that he hosted for many years on WAUS, Andrews University's radio station.
Hall's published chronologies
include three by the Greenwood Press, Eighteenth Century Musical Chronicle,
Nineteenth Century Musical Chronicle, and Twentieth Century Musical
Chronicle; one by Schirmer Books, A Chronicle
of American Music, 1700-1995; and two by Routledge, Chronology of
Western Classical Music, volumes I and II.
Hall had married Mary Quedens in 1948 and they would have four children. The
oldest, Stephen John Hall, was interested in music from his earliest years and
became a French horn player, singer, and band conductor who would teach music
for nearly thirty years at three academies and two colleges in the Seventh-day
Adventist school system.
Hall was living in Berrien
Springs, Michigan, when he died while visiting in Ohio on September 20, 2004,
at age 78.
ds/2017
Sources:
Information provided by Charles Hall in 2003 and Stephen John Hall, June, 2012;
Lake Union Herald: 3 November 1959, 2; 20 July 1971, 16; May 1979, 6; 29
September 1981, 7; 15 January 1985, 5; July 1990, 21; Obituary, Mount Vernon
News, (Ohio), 21 September 2004; Taber Family Tre and Social security Death
Index, 1935-2007, both at Ancestory.com; Personal Knowledge.
Charles John Hall
Selected Compositions
ORCHESTRA
Scherzo, Just for Fun - standard orchestration - fully romantic style -
manuscript.
Port
Royal - symphonic
poem in romantic style - standard orchestration - manuscript
Recitative
for Orchestra -
standard orchestration - contemporary harmony - manuscript
Five
Microscopics for Orchestra - large orchestra - modified
twelve-tone harmony - winner of the 1970 Sigwald
Thompson Award of the Fargo-Moorhead SO - final judge, Elliott Carter –
manuscript.
The
City in the Sea -
tone poem with large orchestra with a small chorus - contemporary harmony -
manuscript
Symphony
- standard orchestra
with saxophone added - modified twelve-tone tonal language - still looking for
a premiere - manuscript
Celebration
Overture -
commissioned by South Bend SO for their 50th Anniversary Concert -
standard orchestration - composer’s tribute to the Romantic Period - romantic
tonal language - contains many excerpts from "friends" who drop in
for the performance.
BAND
Babylon,
the Great (reworking
of the composer’s Babylon Suite) in four movements - standard band - 20th
Century romanticism personified. Can be used as sacred number
with provided texts for each movement.
The Four Beasts of Daniel Seven (incomplete at the time of his
death).
Several arrangements of various works for band.
CHORAL
The
Coming King - based
on melodies of the 19th Century Advent movement - can be used with
organ only, but works much better with either brass and percussion arrangement
or by orchestral arrangement – both available for hire.
A
Psalmic Symphony - a capella
chorus - in four movements (4 psalms) - contemporay
romantic harmony.
The
Ninety and Nine - a
new a capella choral version
of an old favorite.
We’ve
No Abiding City Here
- new a capella arrangement
of an early advent hymn
The
Evergreen Shore - a capella arrangement of another
early advent hymn of triumph
PIANO
Five
Short Pieces - five
short excursions in various contemporary styles
Rondo
Caprice - a romp on
the keyboard in a modern romantic voice