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The American coinductor, Hal Sheeler, was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, and raised in the small upstate town of Granville, New York, close to the border of Vermont. He graduated from Granville High School. Later, he attended the State University of New York (SUNY) at Potsdam, majoring in music education at SUNY Posdam's Crane School of Music, and received a Masters degree from Potsdam (1956-1973) and spent a year of doctoral studies at Indiana University School of Music in Bloomington.
As a college student and then as a beginning public school music teacher, Hal Sheeler was a camp counselor at Camp Passumpsic on Lake Fairlee in Ely, Vermont. He loved the beauty of Vermont and New Hampshire and was drawm back to Camp Passumpsic for five summers. His days off were spent in Hanover, New Hampshire. Hal and his wife, Nancy, moved permanently to the Upper Valley/Dartmouth/Sunapee area in 1993 when he was offered a position as Music Director at Lebanon High School.
They were returning from Europe where he had been a full-time secondary school music teacher for many years with the Department of Defense Dependents Schools (1965-1993). His last teaching position "over there" was in Berlin, Germany during the time that the infamous wall came crumbling down. Before that he had taught in Livorno, Italy and the German communities of Munich, Augsburg, Baumholder, and Ramstein. Their daughter was born in Italy and their son in Munich.
Since January 2001, Hal Sheller now works as New Hampshire and Vermont real estate agent in the Dartmouth College, Lake Sunapee, Upper Valley region at Century 21 Energy Shield Realty. He is still involved in music. He has served as music director for a number of North Country Community Theatre productions summeer productions at the Lebanon Opera House including Pajama Game, Brigadoon, Pirates Of Penzance, Fiddler On The Roof, Singin' In The Rain. Since September 2006, he is Music Director of a fine choral group, the Bel Canto Chamber Singers. He is occasionally vocal soloist, guest conductor, and clarinet player. In the summer of 2009 sang in Opera North's production of the opera, Carmen. |
