Biography
Halley Shoenberg performs saxophone and clarinet with jazz and swing bands in the Washington, DC area. As leader of her own "Halley Shoenberg Jazz Quartet," she performs in concerts, festivals, restaurants and jazz clubs. She has produced two CD releases, Love Goes 'Round and Someday, which include several of her original compositions. A native of Silver Spring, Maryland, Halley earned her Bachelor's degree in Jazz Studies from Indiana University and Master's in Arts Administration from Florida State University. Audiences have enjoyed her music in many places in and outside the United States.
The Halley Shoenberg Jazz Quartet (and Trio) was recently presented in DC area festivals such as the Bethesda, MD Fine Arts Festival, Alexandria, VA Jazz Festival and the Takoma Park Jazz Brawl. As the clarinet soloist in DC’s premiere swing band, Halley is regularly featured on classic swing masterpieces and evening-long Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman tributes. She has played at major venues including the Kennedy Center, National Parks, at the Shenandoah Valley Music Festival and Blues Alley. The Trio was featured in Worchester, MA at a live performance and broadcast for WICN Radio.
Halley's performance style comes from years of classical and jazz training on clarinet, saxophone, and flute, as well as jazz education and listening, and experience playing all types of music, especially jazz and musical theater.
Especially influencing her clarinet playing are Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Buddy DeFranco, and Ken Peplowski. Her saxophone style pays respect to Charlie Parker, Sonny Stitt, Art Pepper, Lee Konitz, Cannonball Adderley, Paul Desmond, Lester Young and Stan Getz. Halley is also inspired by the musical mastery of Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole and the big bands of Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Stan Kenton.
At Indiana University's School of Music Halley studied with David Baker, Dominic Spera, James Campbell, Tom Walsh, Malcolm Lynn Baker, J.B. Dyas and many more outstanding musician-teachers of performance, history, and composition. Right after college Halley first returned to the Washington, DC area to teach private lessons and to intern in the Smithsonian's jazz history department. During her arts administration graduate program at Florida State University, she performed and toured with the school's award-winning jazz ensemble and interned at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Back again in the DC area to stay, Halley began leading her own band at local jazz clubs and special events. She has also performed with small jazz groups, big bands, rock bands, musical theater orchestras, ethnic-style bands (Klezmer, German, Polish, Latin), and classical music ensembles. Halley has performed traditional "Dixieland" jazz with the Potomac River Jazz Club's Federal Focus Jazz Band, which participated in Chilliwack Jazz Festival in British Columbia and at the French Quarter Jazz Festival in New Orleans. Her performances on saxophone in Rhapsody in Blue and the West Side Story Suite have been heard on tour in Germany with the Washington Symphony Orchestra. She has participated in numerous public jam sessions at jazz clubs in DC, New York and New Orleans and at the Women in Jazz Festival at the Kennedy Center.
In addition to the Halley Shoenberg Jazz Quartet and Trio, Halley currently performs and has recorded with the Tom Cunningham (swing) Orchestra, the James Bazen (modern-style) Big Band, and the La Salle (1920's and 30's jazz) Dance Orchestra.