Meet Jill Haley

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jill Haley and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jill, what matters most to you?
In creating my music, authenticity matters the most to me. I place value on writing music that reflects the environment I am in, such as our National Parks. I want the listener to experience, in an aural sense, how that place sounded through music. I do not want to draw on other composers ideas, so I do not study them closely at all. The place or experience must give me the impetus for the musical expression.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
As a long time oboist in the classical world of music, I felt an urge to create music that was personal yet engaging for an audience. I decided that since I have an affinity for nature that I would write music about the astounding beauty in our National Parks. While there are many musicians through the centuries who have been inspired by nature when writing music, I have not found too many folks writing music specifically about our National Parks. I get excited about visiting a new place and seeing what “gift” that place offers me for inspiration. I never know what that gift will be until I arrive at the place, but the touchpoint for inspiration always reveals itself fairly quickly.

Badlands National Park in South Dakota was incredibly windy, so the wind was my gift for the music. Montana’s Glacier National Park was very rainy and snowy when I was in residence, so between the weather and the amazing waterfalls, rivers and lakes, water was my inspiration. Petrified Forest National Park is filled with amazing combinations of colors in its petrified wood, land formations and even the sky, so color was my starting point for creating music. The titles of many of the recordings reflect the initial significant touchpoint that led to the music.

Creating and sharing original instrumental music in todays world has been very challenging. When I began writing music about our National Parks, the business model for music was more amenable to musicians being able to generate some income from their art. I was able to provide music CDs to National Park Visitor Centers for them to offer to folks for sale. As the popularity for CD purchases decreased, I needed to find other ways to generate income.
One way I have been doing this for several years is to put together music and video about a specific place and then share live concerts with a trio of musicians performing pieces I wrote about a specific park set to video of the images that inspired the music.”
Colors Collide,” music about Petrified Forest National Park in AZ, has been shared at the Park as well as part of the ArtX festival in Flagstaff, AZ. I will also share this program where I live in PA at concert venues and festivals. This affords my local audiences to become familiar with a place in AZ that they might not have heard of.

It is not easy to navigate ways to provide listeners a way to access our music in the digital world. It took a lot of reaching out, sending music files, and following up to be added to music streaming services, but it has been successful. I overcame this specific challenge by being patient and receiving support from a professional team in the radio promotion business.
An important lesson I learned along the way was to be consistent with the tasks that needed to be completed to make the music more accessible, and to keep my eye on the long game. It took a few recordings before I was able to take a breath and see some results. As I stayed on course writing, recording and sharing the music, I felt that I was attaining the goal of sharing the music.

I hope folks can take the time to listen and perhaps use their imagination to virtually visit some of these astounding places. Many people have told me that they listen to this music to relax and that is appreciated feedback for me as a creator of my specific art.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I tend to gravitate toward natural spaces of beauty and peacefulness. If a friend was visiting, I would suggest they check out Walnut Canyon National Monument near Flagstaff. Many great vistas are worth checking out at Petrified Forest National Park, and I would also recommend Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument. The ArtX Festival in Flagstaff in May is a great event to check out. Many different types of music, art and dance are going on for 10 days and they are free to the public. Lots of great food is available too.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
The National Park Service has created programs in many of their parks called Artist in Residencies. These programs provide an artist to live in the park for several weeks in park housing while they are creating their art. This provides the artist with the opportunity to focus on their work relatively uninterrupted. Often the park may allow the artist to spend time in places that the public may not have access to. For example, when I was in Mesa Verde, I was allowed to visit the ancestral sites at any time when the park was closed to the public. This afforded me the opportunity to experience the place without any distractions. Occasionally I would record my oboe in these spaces which would have been difficult if the public was in attendance. I would like to dedicate my shout out to the National Park Service.

Website: http://www.jillhaley.com

Instagram: jilhaley

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jilhaley

Youtube: @JillHaleyMusic

Other: email: jilhaley@ptd.net