The New York Composers Circle is very pleased to announce the addition of two new members to the Board of Directors. We welcome CLIFFORD HALL and NELDA NELSON-EATON to our Board, and we look forward to their guidance and contributions to the New York Composers Circle as we close in on our 20th anniversary season in 2022-2023.

CLIFFORD HALL, Jr. is a native of Western Pennsylvania. He graduated from Aliquippa High School in 1970 and earned a BA degree in Political Science from the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, in 1974.

In the summer of 1974, he accepted a position in the general liability claim department with The Travelers Insurance Company, Pittsburgh, PA. His career with The Travelers took him to upstate New York, San Francisco, and finally to their Home Office in Hartford, CT. He left The Travelers in 1992 as a Senior Claims professional in their Liability Strategic Claims Division and accepted a position as a Claims Litigation professional with the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies in their Financial District, New York City office. He left The Chubb Group in 2007 as Assistant Vice President Liability Claims Litigation and is currently retired and living in Brooklyn, NY.

Mr. Hall has served on the Board of The Brooklyn Hospital, Brooklyn New York, on the Board of The Capital Hill Alano Club of Seattle, WA as Treasurer, and as President of the Board of 7 Metrotech Condominiums, Brooklyn, NY, where he resides.

NELDA NELSON-EATON, widow of John Eaton is a renown singer. Her vast performing experience augments our performers’ perspective and will prove to be invaluable in shaping the future of NYCC.

She writes: "I started studying voice when I was seventeen years old at the University of San Diego Alcala Park with Prof. Charlotte Bond Aldrich. I was very active in the opera workshop. Upon graduation, I enrolled at the University of Southern California where I studied with Miss Alice Mock and was also enrolled in their opera program. 

"In 1971, I moved to Bloomington, Indiana to enroll in the opera program and study with Martha Lipton. In 1973, I met and married John C. Eaton, the composer whose opera, Heracles, opened the Musical Arts Center. While there, I sang lead roles in many opera productions, won fourth place in the National Metropolitan Opera Auditions in 1974 and subsequently I was offered a Fulbright fellowship in that same year to pursue further operatic studies with Luigi Ricci of the Bel Canto Institute in Rome, Italy and art song with Giorgio Favaretto at the Santa Cecilia Academy of Rome.

"In 2018 I established the John Eaton Foundation, a nonprofit organization to promote the works of John Eaton and also those of other contemporary composers. We put on two concerts, one, a memorial for John Eaton who passed away in 2015 and a legacy concert of his students. Subsequently Covid arrived on the scene and put a damper on our presentations, but hopefully, the foundation will be able to continue its work in the very near future."