Collaborative Pianist
American pianist Jessica Hall has enjoyed an active career including roles as pianist, assistant and offstage conductor, coach, and chorus master on the music staff of more than 65 opera productions with Seattle Opera, Wexford Festival Opera, Minnesota Opera, Portland Opera, Opera Memphis, USC Opera, Opera UCLA, Pacific Opera Project, and Hawaii Performing Arts Festival
She has played under noted conductors David Agler, Michael Christie, Joseph Colaneri, Nicholas Fox, George Manahan, Anne Manson, Brent McMunn, Steven Osgood, Michael Sakir, Robert Spano, and Osmo Vänskä, and worked within the vocal departments of University of Puget Sound, University of Southern California, UCLA, Chapman University, Pasadena City College, and Scripps College. Previous faculty positions include the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival and OperaWorks in Los Angeles.
A frequent collaborator, Jessica has performed in concert with Damien Geter, Olafur Sigurdarson, Rod Gilfry, Gemma Summerfield, and Marie Lenormand and participated in master classes and residencies with celebrated pianists, singers, and composers such as Marilyn Horne, Martin Katz, John Churchwell, Jeremy Denk, Anthony Dean Griffey, Nathan Gunn, Jake Heggie, Eric Owens, Denyce Graves, and Ricky Ian Gordon.
Jessica served on the Portland Opera music staff from 2016-2020 as répétiteur for As One, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Eugene Onegin, La finta giardiniera, Man of La Mancha as well as continuo player for Così fan tutte and Gluck’s Orfeo ed Eurydice. As a Resident Artist at Minnesota Opera from 2015-2018, she assisted several world premieres including Paul Moravec and Mark Campbell’s The Shining, William Bolcom and Mark Campbell’s Dinner at Eight, and Joel Puckett and Eric Simonson’s The Fix.
She received her Master of Music, Graduate Certificate, and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in Keyboard Collaborative Arts from the University of Southern California under the tutelage of Dr. Alan L. Smith.