Kelly Hall-Tompkins

Hall-Tompkins has performed at many venues with many different symphonies in her career as a violinist.[1][3][5][6] She has appeared as a co-soloist in Carnegie Hall with Glenn Dicterow and conductor Leonard Slatkin, and in London at Queen Elizabeth Hall, at Lincoln Center.[1][5][3][6] She has performed with Dallas, Jacksonville, and Oakland Symphonies. She has given recitals in Paris, New York, Toronto, Washington, Chicago, and Santa Fe as well as the Tanglewood Festival and the Ravinia festival.[1][5][3][6] Outside the United States, she has also performed in France, Germany, and Italy."[1][5] In 2015 and 2016, she performed as The Fiddler in the 50th anniversary Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof.[1][2][3][6] This led to the release of her CD "The Fiddler Expanding Tradition" in 2018, her second CD.[6] The first, titled "In My Own Voice - Music for Violin and Piano with Harp" was released in 2008.[6][4] After playing the role of "the fiddler" in the revival of Fiddler on the Roof, Tompkins was inspired to write and release the first ever Fiddler solo album, which would be titled The Fiddler: Expanding Tradition.[8] In 2020, Tompkins was selected for the first cohort of WQXR's Artist propulsion lab, a grant program that supports early and mid-career musicians in New York City.[8][5] Kelly-Hall is currently a member of the Gateways Music Festival. She currently serves as concertmaster in this organization and takes part in the Artistic Programs Committee.[9]

Hall-Tompkins founded Music Kitchen — Food for the Soul in 2005.[2][5][7][10] The program began in the basement of the men's shelter program located at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, where Kelly-Hall was a member. During her time attending the church she decided one night, rather than practicing with collogues, to play for the shelter members and was then asked to return again.[11] Music Kitchen is a program that lifts the spirits of homeless New Yorkers through live classical music recitals."[2][7][10] By 2020, Music Kitchen has performed in over 30,000 shelter clients and had brought top artists to perform in over 100 concerts in various homeless shelters throughout the United States and Paris, France.[5][6][11]

Forgotten Voices is a collection of sixteen songs that explores the human experience.[11][12] This project was initiated in 2019 in celebration of the fifteen years of success of Music Kitchen – Food for the Soul.[11] The song cycle premiered on March 31, 2022, in Zankel Hall, located at Carnegie Hall, with text collected from the general feedback of guest of the Music Kitchen performances.[11] The collected feedback was made into music by commissioned accomplished composers Courtney Bryan, Jon Jeffrey Grier, Kelly Hall-Tompkins, Beata Moon, James Lee III, Paul Moravec, Kevin Puts, Jeff Scott, Steve Sandberg, Kamala Sankaram, Carlos Simon, Angélica Negrón, Errollyn Wallen, Ellen Taaffee Zwilich, and Gabriel Kahane.[12][11] Other collaborators include vocal artists Allison Charney, Adrienne Danrich, Jesse Blumberg, and Mark Risinger in addition to instrumentalists Andrew Gonzalez, Alexis Pia Gerlach, Peter Seidenberg, and John-Paul Norpoth.[12][11]