Rosalind Hall is an Australian musician and composer who creates performances, compositions, installations and soundtracks. Rosalind’s spatial and expansive work explores the physicality of sound through the use of amplification, microtonal movement, beating frequencies and reverberation.
In collaboration, Rosalind has formed duos with cellist Judith Hamann, saxophonist Jim Denley, guitarist David Brown, vocalist Alice Hui-Sheng Chang and coder Ben Byrne. She has also collaborated with groups such as the Snuff Puppets, Splinter Orchestra and the Australian Art Orchestra for Pedro Reyes’ Disarm project.
In solo performance, Rosalind has played modified saxophone and created live diffusions of her compositions. The extensions she has developed for the saxophone include making reeds from various materials and using an acoustic spring reverberation tube in the bell of the instrument. Rosalind has also explored live amplification to her body, including the breath, throat and pulse in performance. These additions were designed to enhance the transparency and dependency between body, instrument and presence.
Rosalind’s compositions have featured at the National Gallery of Victoria (Au), MONA (Au), Gertrude Contemporary (Au), Science Gallery Melbourne (Au), Whitney Museum of American Art (US), Echigo Tsumari (Jp), Vuorikaiku Sound Gallery (Fi), Instants Chavirés (Fr), LABoral Art Centre (Sp), Kulturdrogerie (At), and Museruole On the Air (It). Rosalind has performed in festivals such as Mona Foma, Melbourne Festival, Liquid Architecture, Next Wave, Avantwhatever Festival, the NOW now, Echigo Tsumari (Jp) and LEM festival (Sp).
Rosalind completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sound Art at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 2009. She was the recipient of an Australia Council for the Arts mentorship grant with media artist Robin Fox in 2014, developing skills in electronic music and composing for theatre.
In 2015 Rosalind received an Australia Council for the Arts development grant to research the Free Music machines made by Percy Grainger, Burnett Cross and Ella Grainger in the 1950s. She collaborated with designer and builder Michael Candy to realise playable models of three of the Free Music machines which were showcased in the Melbourne Festival in 2016 and Mona Foma in 2018. She is the researcher and producer of an upcoming LP of archival recordings of the Free Music Machines, to be released on Wally De Backer’s label Forgotten Futures.
In 2018 Rosalind received a scholarship to the Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio professional development course, studying synthesis and working with vintage synthesizers. Rosalind’s debut electronic music album was released by Important Records in 2019.