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Clinician: Dana Hall

Brooklyn - born drummer Dana Hall has been an important musician on the international music scene since 1992. After completing his education in aerospace engineering at Iowa State University, he received his Bachelor of Music degree from William Paterson College and his Masters degree in composition from DePaul University. He is presently a Special Trustees Fellow completing his Doctorate in ethnomusicology at the University of Chicago.

The list of artists with whom Mr. Hall has performed and/or recorded includes Branford Marsalis, Ray Charles, Roy Hargrove, Joshua Redman, Horace Silver, Michael Brecker, Nicholas Payton, Benny Green, Frank Foster, Betty Carter, Jimmy Heath, Benny Golson, Bobby Hutcherson, Wallace Roney, Diana Krall, Renee Rosnes, Clark Terry, the Mingus Big Band, Steve Lacy, Muhal Richard Abrams, Gary Bartz, Lester Bowie, Slide Hampton, James Moody, Joe Williams, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Ralph Bowen, Phil Woods, Kenny Barron, Maria Schneider, Jackie McLean, Mulgrew Miller, the Woody Herman Orchestra, and Joe Henderson, among others. In addition to serving as Music Director of the Chicago Jazz Ensemble, Mr. Hall is a member of the Terell Stafford Quintet. He is formerly a regular member of the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band under the direction of Maestro Faddis and has served in the percussion sections of the Des Moines and Cedar Rapids Symphonies.

Professor Hall is also a clinician and educator. In 2004, he joined the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as an Assistant Professor of Music. He has served as a faculty member at the University of Chicago and at Columbia College Chicago, and is a member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Band Director's Academy and Essentially Ellington faculties. Mr. Hall also taught in the Ravinia Festival's Jazz in the Schools Mentoring Program and at the Merit School of Music, continuing his mission to assist in bringing quality music education to students in Chicago. Mr. Hall is a member of the Thelonious Monk Institute's Jazz in America Program and the Jazz Institute of Chicago's Artists Residency Program. In each, he mentors secondary school students in the fundamentals of jazz, Latin, and popular musics. Mr. Hall also maintains a private studio.

Concurrent with his national and international music projects, Mr. Hall can be seen and heard in Illinois with his own groups and as an artist with other ensembles. Mr. Hall endorses Yamaha Drums, Bosphorus Cymbals, and Pro-Mark Drumsticks.