Effective December 1, 2021, Paul Halley resigned from his position as Director of Music at The University of King's College, Halifax, NS.
Paul Halley served for fourteen years as Director of Music at The University of King's College Halifax, from July 2007 to December 2021, during which time he expanded the chapel music programme, initiated choral scholarships for students, and directed the acclaimed King's Halifax Chapel Choir in weekly Evensongs and Choral Eucharists at the college chapel as well as the 'King's at the Cathedral' concert series (begun 2008) of choral masterworks at the Cathedral Church of All Saints in Halifax. Emerging differences of opinion between Halley and the college's senior administration, regarding the chapel music programme, prompted Halley's to tender his resignation.
Paul Halley
M.A. Cantab., FRCO, ARCT
Paul Halley is a Grammy Award-winning composer, choral conductor, and organist. He is Director of Music of The Cathedral Church of All Saints in Halifax, Nova Scotia and Creative Director of the music publisher, record label, and arts management company, Pelagosmusic, which manages Halley's music catalogue.
Born in Romford, England in 1952, Paul Halley was raised in Ottawa, Canada where he received his early musical training as a chorister and assistant organist with The Men and Boys Choir of St. Matthew's Anglican Church. At age sixteen, he was made an Associate of the Royal Conservatory of Toronto. Awarded the organ scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge, Halley received his M.A. with prizes in compostion and performance, and was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists, winning first prize in the College examinations. Following four years of post-graduate work as a church musician and teacher in Montreal, QC, Jamaica, W.I. and Victoria, BC, Halley was appointed Organist and Choirmaster at The Cathedral of St. John The Divine in New York City where he served for twelve years from 1977-1989. During his tenure at St. John the Divine, Halley collaborated with The Paul Winter Consort, contributing as principal writer and keyboardist to multiple Grammy Award-winning albums released in the 1980's and 1990's.
Following his departure from the Cathedral in 1989, Halley settled in rural Connecticut and founded the children’s choir, Chorus Angelicus, and the adult ensemble, Gaudeamus. In 1999, Halley became Director of Music at Trinity Episcopal Church, Torrington, CT where he inaugurated a Choral and Organ Scholars program in conjunction with Yale University’s Institute of Sacred Music. In 2007, Halley relocated to Halifax, Nova Scotia to become Director of Music at both the University of King’s College (to December 2021) and St. George’s Anglican Church (to 2011), as well as University Musician at Atlantic School of Theology (to 2015). In 2015 Halley became Director of Music at The Cathedral Church of All Saints, Halifax, a position he held in conjunction with his work at King’s, providing many opportunities for collaboration between the two institutions Although retired from King's, Paul continues to inspire as Director of Music at the Cathedral and hopes to expand the Cathedral's current music program to include a new concert series.
Halley’s choral and instrumental compositions are distributed internationally by Pelagos Incorporated, the recording, music publishing, and arts management company which he established with his wife, Meg Race in 1998. Halley’s compositions have been commissioned or licensed by such organizations as Sony Entertainment, John Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra, CBC, The Toronto Symphony, and Canadian Brass. In addition to a regular output of liturgical music, Halley composes three to four new, commissioned works per year.
Among the Pelagos recordings which feature compositions and arrangements by Paul Halley: Nightwatch, a reissue of Halley’s landmark 1982 organ improvisation album, recorded on the Great Organ of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine; Sound Over All Waters, a compilation of Halley’s choral works and arrangements for gospel singer, Theresa Thomason, and Keramion Singers; Triptych, Halley’s keyboard works for the unique trio of piano, pipe organ, and harpsichord, recorded at Spivey Hall in Atlanta; Untraveled Worlds, a compilation of world music repertoire presented by Chorus Angelicus; and What Child Is This?, comprising a curated selection of new and less familiar Christmas repertoire. A new recording entitled In The Wide Awe and Wisdom, a two-CD set comprising sixteen of Halley's recent choral compositions, is the newest release from Pelagosmusic. This spectacular new recording features performances by Keramion Singers, Paul Halley, Director.
Paul Halley and his wife, Meg Race, an artist, live on the South Shore of Nova Scotia where they enjoy exploring the waters of Mahone Bay in a traditional Cape Cod catboat which rejoices in the name, "Magnificat", as well as a dinghy, "Nunc Dimittis", a Rangeley Lakes guideboat, "Dragonfly", and two canoes which, at this point, remain nameless.
