hadley
Pianist Hadley McCarroll has been hailed for her “…lively and exhilarating…” pianism (San Francisco Classical Voice). Born in Washington D.C., she received her formative training at the Levine School of Music and the Washington Conservatory of Music, where she was a scholarship student in the piano and opera workshop departments. Later studies were with Santiago Rodriguez. While still in high school, she had the opportunity to accompany famed Bolshoi Opera mezzo-soprano Renata Babak in one of her last public appearances, at which time critic Joseph McClellan of the Washington Post noted in his review of the concert: “…her accompanying was noticeable for its high level at her age…a skill which few pianists master even later in life.” She earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of Texas at Austin, making her orchestral debut under the baton of the renowned American composer and conductor Gunther Schuller. She has also worked with Vladimir Viardo, Isaac Stern, Martin Katz, Warren Jones, and Marlena Malas. She coaches chamber music with Richard Goode and cellist Mike Reynolds of the Muir Quartet.
A well-known performer throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, Hadley has worked throughout the United States and internationally as a solo and collaborative pianist. She has served on the music staff of the Royal Danish Opera, San Diego Opera, Utah Festival Opera, while enjoying collaborations with many local San Francisco groups – Hadley has worked with nearly every Bay Area opera company – including San Francisco Opera, Opera San Jose, Festival Opera, and West Bay Opera. She has accompanied international artists Jane Eaglen, Nucia Focile, and Linda Watson. Under the baton of Kent Nagano she served as musical preparer for West Coast premiere concert performances by Elliott Carter, Phillip Manoury and Unsuk Chin. Hadley has also appeared on the Festival del Sole in Napa Valley with soprano Nino Machaidze. She has presented chamber music masterclasses and concerts at the Northwestern University School of Music, the Nueva School, and has taught musicianship and theory classes for the San Francisco Choral Society. Hadley has been on the faculty of the San Francisco Community Music Center since 1997, and also teaches at the Crowden School in Berkeley, while maintaining a busy private studio. An active chamber musician, she is the founding pianist of The Mirage Ensemble, a soprano-clarinet-piano trio, and performs frequently with sfSoundGroup, a local composer/improviser collective specializing in music of the avante-garde, with a focus on American Experimentalism. In 2003 she was awarded a major grant from the City of Oakland to perform concertos for piano and chamber wind ensemble.
Equally at home as a soloist, she has given performances (as part of sfSound’s Cage Series) of Sonatas and Interludes at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and piano and voice works at ODC Theater; she also performed recitals of Beethoven, Ligeti, Liszt and Schumann in San Francisco, and toured with Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet – she performed in King’s new work “Constellation” to sold-out houses in Paris in December 2013, and in March 2014 in New York City.