Robert Hallahan

Associate Professor, Piano

Beginning his career as a jazz pianist in 1975, Bob Hallahan has been heard across the U.S. and around the world, in concerts, nightclubs and jazz festivals from East Coast to West and as far as Beijing, China. He has appeared as a featured solo pianist at The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and as a sideman with many notable jazz artists, including saxophonists Joe Henderson, James Moody, Lou Donaldson, Arthur Blythe, Clifford Jordan and Bud Shank, trumpeters Clark Terry, Freddie Hubbard and Byron Stripling, trombonists Conrad Herwig and Wycliffe Gordon, guitarists Randy Johnston and Pat Metheny, and singers Sheila Jordan, Anita O’Day, and René Marie. Festival and club appearances include the East Coast Jazz Festival, Clifford Brown Jazz Festival, Blues Alley in Washington, D.C., the Jazz Standard in New York, Nardis in Istanbul, Turkey and Le Club in Moscow, Russia.

Since 1997 Bob has been the pianist with Robert Jospé and Inner Rhythm, and can be heard on the band’s five recordings to date. He has appeared on nearly twenty other recordings as both a sideman and leader, including his most recent release, Here with the Bob Hallahan Trio, I Thought about You with saxophonist Fred Haas, and The Street Where You Live with guitarist Adam Larrabee. Jazz writer Joel Siegel of Washington D.C.’s City Paper and Jazz Times magazine described Bob as a “ … thoughtful, lyrical pianist (who) can swing hard when required…”, and Owen Cordle of The Raleigh News and Observer found his playing “… reminiscent of Oscar Peterson at his most swinging…”.

An experienced jazz educator, Bob taught for many years at Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Virginia. In 2010 he joined the faculty of James Madison University’s School of Music in Harrisonburg, VA, where he teaches applied jazz study, jazz theory and jazz improvisation.