Local Violinist, Teacher, Conductor Says "Music is my Life"

“The bow is connected through the arm to the heart and that’s where the music comes from,” Drostan Hall said to his student Ellie Rutan, 11, during her violin lesson.

Drostan Hall is a celebrated violinist, conductor and founder of the Hall School of Music and Camerata Chicago, a chamber orchestra. Both were started with his wife and violinist, Dorothy, which they run out of their home in Wheaton.

Hall was born in Norwich, England, then moved to Suffolk near Cambridge. He started playing the violin at the age of 4. Both of his parents were professional musicians; his father, a pianist, and his mother, a violinist. His brothers also played instruments.

“We’re a bit like the von Trapp family just with a different style,” Hall said.

“Music is my life,” he explained. “I have always known I wanted to be a violinist. When I was in college I would do nine hours of violin practice per day... I had never thought about conducting. I have never had any formal training, not even a class at college,” he said.

But conducting is in his family. "My uncle was a conductor, Sir Charles Mackerras.  He was a legend in his lifetime,” Hall said.

“I remember one time I rang up my aunt, Lady Mackerras, and the secretary answered. I said ‘Can I speak to Aunt Judy?’ And the secretary said, ‘Sorry, she and Charles are out having lunch with the Queen.’”

Hall got his performer’s degree from the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England. He then got a scholarship to Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, where he received his master's degree.

After he graduated from NIU, Hall had to decide whether to stay in the States or return to England. “I struggled with that. I gave it to God and I woke up the next morning and the answer came through that I should stay.”

He moved to Wheaton in 1994 and started teaching private lessons. “When I first got started I realized there was a great demand for violin lessons here.

 “After meeting my wife, Dorothy, and she had a bunch of students as well… that is when we decided to quote-end-quote open the Hall School of Music [in 1995]… and we never looked back,” Hall said.

Students ages range from 6 to college age. Hall has 25 violin and viola students himself. The school has three other teachers; Jeremy Attenaseo who plays in the Chicago Symphony and teaches bass; Susan Young, flute and piano; and Ruth Mudge, cello.

Hall runs two student orchestras along with the school. The Training Orchestra has about 15 students with an average age of about 10. The Baroque Festival Orchestra is made up of high schoolers. They performed twice on WFMT on the Introductions program, where they invite “the best pre-collegiate orchestras in and around Chicago.”

In 2003 Hall and his wife decided to start a professional chamber orchestra, Camerata Chicago. They recorded their first concert and sent it to a record company and were immediately offered a record contract. “It just got bigger and bigger. We started attracting people with a high level of capacity as well as a high level of interest,” Hall said.

Camerata Chicago started with only 14 musicians, but expanded into a full-fledged chamber orchestra in February with 35 members. “We went from playing little bits of Vivaldi to Beethoven’s Symphonies,” Hall said of the group’s growth.

“Many musicians in Camerata Chicago also play or have played with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra or Lyric Opera of Chicago or other reputable local orchestras. They're all very good musicians,” Hall said. Camerata have done several live radio broadcasts on WFMT including Live from the Cultural Center of Chicago and Live from WFMT among others. 

The next big move for the chamber orchestra is a tour of Europe in the summer of 2013. They will be playing concerts “in all of the famous musical capitols including London, Vienna, Salzburg, and Prague. It will be extraordinary,” Hall said. 

“In the future I see Camerata Chicago expanding in terms of doing more concerts. We would like to see a full season. In 2013 the tour will be huge not only for the orchestra, but for my career in general,” Hall said.

In his free time, other than playing, teaching, and conducting music, Hall enjoys playing with his children and doing things with his family. “I love to sail. I have a 14-foot boat which I like to take out on Lake Geneva,” Hall said. He and his wife have three children: Madeleine, 10; Ellison, 7; and Audrianna, 5.

His hidden talent is making guacamole. “When I went to NIU I was a maître de at a Mexican restaurant and I learned to make guacamole. Everyone loves my guacamole,” Hall said.

His favorite composer?  “That’s hard. It would have to be Beethoven… or Mozart," he said.

Favorite piece to conduct? “Beethoven’s 7th Symphony …because it is monumentally grand. It is so exciting. Particularly his 5th and 7th … I think is some of the most exciting music ever written,” Hall said.