Matthew Halls

Matthew Halls

Person from United Kingdom

Genres: baroque, Classical, harpsichord, conductor, pipe organ

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About Matthew Halls

Matthew Halls (b. 1975) is an English conductor and keyboardist. He has been appointed Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra for a three-year term starting in autumn 2023. The contract includes an option for continuation. Halls grew up in a home where choir singing and organ music were practiced. Halls, who studied on an organ scholarship at Oxford University, played early music on keyboards and also worked as a choir conductor. He played in orchestras and as a soloist, and also made a career as a singer. Halls was over thirty when he began to focus on conducting orchestras. In Britain, few musicians start their conducting careers at a young age, as is often the case in Finland. When choosing the works he conducts, Halls favors versatility. He is proficient in works of early music and classicism, as well as pieces of romantic and contemporary music. Halls has visited many European and North American orchestras, including those in Cleveland, Toronto and Chicago. Halls lived with his family in Toronto for a long time, as his wife is Canadian and played horn with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. They moved to England in the fall of 2021. Halls has also conducted concerts in Australia, Hong Kong and Russia, and has often worked as an opera conductor. He has recorded Baroque music in particular, but also classicism, working as both conductor and keyboardist. In Finland, Halls has conducted, among other things, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra where he made his debut in November 2019. Halls conducted the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra for the first time in February 2022 and made such a strong impression that he was scheduled for a revisit in October. When the search for a successor to Santtu-Matias Rouval began in late spring 2022, the orchestra ended up at Halls, which was offered the position of chief conductor in the summer. The contract negotiations, which began in July, soon led to a result.

Taken from Last.fm

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