Percy Hall composer / arranger

Percy Hall is a composer and arranger with over 250 published pieces to his credit. Over the years, Percy has performed professionally in symphony orchestras, concert bands, dance bands and small ensembles, playing a wide range of brass, woodwind and percussion instruments. He taught instrumental music, both band and orchestra, in the Mansfield, Ohio schools for 41 years, retiring in 1993. For the next ten years he taught instrumental techniques at Ashland University, Ashland, Ohio. Since 2001, Percy has been the conductor of the Mansfield Symphony Youth Strings, a group comprised of 60 string players, mostly in grades 6 through 10, coming from 22 schools in north central Ohio. He has served as Assistant Conductor of the Mansfield Symphony Youth Orchestra, a full orchestra of high school age students, for many years. He is a former member (and still the music arranger) of the Mansfield Symphony Woodwind Trio, which performs educational concerts in area schools.

Percy is the recipient of many awards recognizing his achievements and significant contributions to the field of music education, including the Ohio Music Education Association's (OMEA's) Outstanding Music Educator of the Year Award in 1987, and the OMEA Distinguished Service Award in 1995. Percy was inducted into the Ohio Band Directors Conference Hall of Fame in 1995.

Percy served for 50 years as an Ohio Music Educators Association OMEA Adjudicator for all instrumental categories: Strings, Woodwinds, Brass, Percussion, Band, and Orchestra. He served on the OMEA Adjudications Committee for 13 years and supervised the revision of the Solo and Ensemble List on two occasions.

Over 200 of his ensembles are listed on the current edition of the OMEA Solo and Ensemble Adjudicated Event Music (the required list for high school solos and ensembles in Ohio.) A few ensembles are on the A list (most difficult), but most are on the B and C lists. A number of his ensembles are also on required or recommended lists in other states, including New York, Virginia, Florida, Wisconsin and Texas. His arrangements and compositions are also widely performed in Jr. High/Middle School Adjudicated Events.

There are also well over 40 string orchestra arrangements and compositions which are published; full recordings of most of these pieces are available in MP3 format on this web site.

Most of Percy's ensembles were written for Junior High use, and some were written for adult ensembles to perform in school assembly programs. Some will offer technical and musical challenges for the performers. The ensembles are carefully edited, and include dynamics, tempo indications, program notes and performance suggestions so that the ensemble experience will be as rewarding as possible.

In addition to composing and arranging for small ensembles, Percy has also created arrangements for the Mansfield Symphony Orchestra, the Sounds of Sousa Band directed by Marcus Neiman, other concert and marching bands, dance orchestras, pop vocal ensembles, and many sacred choral selections for SATB, SSA and TTBB choruses. These arrangements are currently unpublished.

He has composed 8 original marches for various levels, all of which have been performed a number of times by school bands in concert and large group adjudicated events. One of the marches, The Buckingham Brigade, was published in 1998 by Queenwood Pub. (distributed by Neil Kjos) and has sold over 300 copies in the U.S. and Canada. The Patriot March and El Bandido de Zamora are more recent publications of Great Works Inc./LudwigMasters.