Helen Hall was born in Montreal. From an early age she has been fascinated with sound and vibration, and studied classical guitar and composition at the University of British Columbia, and at McGill University in Montreal. During this period she also took classes in electronic and computer music, the physics and acoustics of sound, and sound engineering.
Her music is inspired by acoustic principles of resonance, harmonics, and tuning, the avant garde Jazz tradition of John Coltrane, and traditions of Eastern Orthodox chant. It has been performed and broadcast in North America and Europe, and has been featured on CBC Radio’s Two New Hours, Radio-Canada’s Musique Actuelle, Le Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville (Quebec), The Scotia Festival of Music (Nova Scotia, Canada), New York’s Bang on a Can, Sonic Disturbance Festival of Sound in Ohio and the Subtropic Music Festival in Florida. She has received commissions from Hemispheres Orchestra, The Music Gallery (Toronto), Le Grand Ensemble de Saxophones de Montréal, S.O.I.L. (Belgium) and is an associate composer of the Canadian Music Centre.
Helen Hall has been a guest lecturer in Music, Literature, Visual Art and Film departments in Canada and the U.S. and has taught music and sound design at the National Theatre School of Canada for a period of ten years.
Her independent research into the physical basis of music and its relationship to energy has led her to extend her music into film. Powerlines, her first film, explores the mystery of electromagnetic fields and began as music based on the sound waves of artificial electromagnetic radiation. Powerlines premiered at the Vancouver International Film Festival in 1998 and won the International Jury Award at the International Festival of Films on Energy in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1999.
She is currently in production with Pictures of Infinity, a feature documentary about Nikola Tesla’s unique understanding of nature and its inherent connection to acoustic principles of energy.
Helen Hall’s work has received support from the Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund, the Canada Council for the Arts, le Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Department of External Affairs Canada, the National Film Board of Canada, the Flemish Government of Belgium, the Bakken Library and Museum of Electricity in Life in Minneapolis, From The Heart Productions in Los Angeles, and Transformation Trust in Indianapolis, USA.
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