Robert Hallahan
Piano
Phone: (804) 828-1166
E-mail: nahallah@aol.com
www.bobhallahan.com
Since beginning his career as a jazz pianist in 1975, Robert Hallahan has been heard across the country and around the world in concerts, nightclubs and jazz festivals. He has toured Beijing, China as part of a cultural exchange sponsored by United Airlines and has appeared as a featured solo pianist at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He has been a sideman in groups led by such jazz luminaries as saxophonists Joe Henderson, James Moody, Lou Donaldson, Arthur Blythe, Clifford Jordan and Bud Shank; trumpeters Clark Terry and Freddie Hubbard; guitarist Pat Metheny; and singers Anita O’Day, Sheila Jordan and René Marie. His performance with Sheila Jordan at Burlington, Vt.’s Discover Jazz Festival has been broadcast several times on National Public Radio’s Jazz Set, hosted by Branford Marsalis. Other festival and club appearances include the East Coast Jazz Festival, Clifford Brown Jazz Festival, Blues Alley and One Step Down in Washington, D.C., Zinno in New York, The Deer’s Head Inn in Pennsylvania and Le Club in Moscow, Russia, where Hallahan appeared as part of a ten-day tour with René Marie and VCU colleagues Victor Dvoskin (bass) and Howard Curtis (drums).
Jazz writer Joel Siegel of Washington D.C.’s City Paper andJazz Times magazine describes him as a “… thoughtful, lyrical pianist (who) can swing hard when required.” Owen Cordle of the Raleigh News and Observer found his playing “… reminiscent of Oscar Peterson at his swingingest.” Recordings include “I Thought about You” with New England saxophonist Fred Haas (Jazztoons, JT 1002), “Invitation to an Escapade” with vocalist Stephanie Nakasian (Chase Music Group, CMD-8060) and “Blue Blaze” with percussionist Robert Jospé (independent). In addition to his work as a freelance jazz pianist, Hallahan served as music director for Richmond, Va.’s premiere jazz club, Benjamin’s, from 1989 to 1994. From 1991 to 1997, he produced and co-hosted a monthly radio program on jazz piano for Richmond’s National Public Radio affiliate, WCVE-FM.
Holding a Bachelor of Music degree from East Carolina University, he has been on the Jazz Studies program faculty at VCU since 1981, teaching applied jazz piano, small jazz ensembles, jazz history and jazz appreciation. He regularly performs in schools and communities around the commonwealth with the VCU Jazz Masters faculty sextet, an endowed program funded with the support of the Mary Morton Parsons Foundation and jazz patrons in the community. Hallahan also teaches every summer at Interplay Jazz Camp in New England. In 1990, he took a six-month leave of absence from VCU to assume the post of artist-in-residence at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vt.
Hear VCU Jazz Studies faculty members Skip Gailes (sax), Rex Richardson (trumpet), Antonio García (trombone), Hallahan (piano), Mike Ess (guitar) and Tony Martucci (drums), as well as VCU jazz alumnus Rusty Farmer (bass) perform several tunes at a benefit concert for Lindsay Ess, a recent graduate of the VCUarts Fashion department. The half-hour clip beings approximately 25 minutes into the video.
Q&A with him about his career.
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