Graham Hall
Arranger
Growing up in a non-musical family in the 1960s turned out to be a great advantage for my future as a drummer. It wasn’t until I was fourteen that I really started to get into all things percussion. Before that, I was all about acting, inspired by my great, great-grandfather, the famous actor and manager Albert Hall.
Nottingham in the early ‘70s was a fantastic place for amateur musicians, with lots of orchestras for adults and kids and a music service that really cared about standards and helping young musicians, thanks to great teachers and good funding. This system helped me study with the best percussionist of the time, the late, great James Blades. My parents would drive me all the way to his house in Cheam, Surrey, every fortnight to see him.
After studying at the Royal Academy of Music, I wanted to give back to the organisation that had supported me so much, so I became a percussion teacher in Nottingham. I almost loved it! But the idea of wearing white tie and tails and using my acting skills to play a bass drum was too tempting, and in 1984, the call of the freelance percussionist came. In 1992, I joined the Orchestra of Opera North as a full-time member. I said, ‘It’s a job from heaven!’ because it allowed me to still play with ViVA (the Nottingham-based professional chamber orchestra), live in Pinxton and, because as you’re playing in a pit, you can hardly hear the singers!
I’ve always loved fiddling around with music, but in 2005, I significantly increased the amount of orchestrating and arranging I was doing. This led to a massive increase in the number of times my wife, Janet (a violinist at VIVA), has yelled up the stairs, ‘Your dinner is on the table’.
I was considering stepping back from playing to focus more on music preparation, when on November 17th, 2014, disaster struck! Stroke! The connections in my brain suddenly stopped, and a flock of ‘Aphi’ trampled my language, rearranging my life puzzle. I was transposed into a distant key, and the music sounded strange, as if Bach had heard Stravinsky for the very first time with lyrics by a cod Sondheim. I’d had a brain attack.
By putting the music together in a new way and practising my aphasic speech, my performance now relies on my damaged left inferior temporal lobe.
I was honoured with the Royal Philharmonic Society/Association of British Orchestras Salomon Prize, which is given to orchestral players nominated by their colleagues for their contributions to the orchestra’s work.