Joy Hall (30 November 1920, Raunds, Northamptonshire — 14 September 2023, Crediton, Devon) was a distinguished British cellist, pedagogue, and centenarian. With a career spanning over fifty years, Hall participated in many notable British symphony orchestras and chamber ensembles, including The Delmé String Quartet she co-founded and regularly appeared in BBC radio and television broadcasts. She recorded with The Beatles and other prominent acts as a studio session musician and released dozens of classical albums on Philips, Nonesuch, Argo (2), and Chandos.
Hall grew up in a musical family and began playing cello at six. In 1933, thirteen-year-old Joyce won the Royal Academy of Music's scholarship, later joining The New Queen's Hall Orchestra co-founded by Sir Henry Wood (where she subsequently rose to a principal cellist). After graduating from RAM, Hall joined the London Symphony Orchestra, participating in Royal Albert Hall's Proms summer concerts and other notable events. Joy performed with several chamber ensembles, including the Zorian String Quartet and Musica da Camera (alongside violinist Vera Kantrovich, violist Cecil Aronowitz, clarinetist Sidney Fell, and pianist Hubert Dawkes).
In 1962, Joy Hall co-founded The Delmé String Quartet with violinists Granville Delmé Jones, Jürgen Hess, and John Underwood on viola. Following the debut concert series at London's Royal Festival Hall produced by BBC, Delmé Quartet toured extensively, participating in Salzburger Festspiele and other European festivals. Besides their classical repertoire, the Quartet actively participated in studio sessions. Most notably, Delmé Quartet's members appeared on the "Strawberry Fields Forever" song by The Beatles. (Joy got miscredited as "John Hall" in two of the most popular Beatles "reference" books with annotated recording sessions, Mark Lewisohn's 1988 Complete Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Abbey Road Story 1962–1970 and Ian MacDonald's 1994 Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties.) She also recorded cello on Paul McCartney's 1967 soundtrack for The Family Way film by The Boulting Brothers. In 1969, Joy and Delme Quartet performed Ravel's Introduction and Allegro with clarinetist Thea King at Kingsway Hall in London, which came out on Argo's critically acclaimed Ravel/ Bax/ Debussy LP with Robles Trio.
Hall served as the English Chamber Orchestra and Philomusica Of London member for many years. As one of the most in-demand "continuo" players, she collaborated with numerous other early music ensembles and soloists, including Julian Bream, Roy Jesson, Charles Spinks (2), Janet Baker, and Raymond Leppard. Since Joyce's first appearance with the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra in 1944, she participated in numerous broadcasts over the next thirty-five years on Third Programme, BBC Home Service, BBC Radio 1, Radio Two, and BBC Television. Hall continued her career until the mid-1990s, well into her seventies, teaching at Wells Cathedral School in Somerset and regularly performing at London's Royal Festival Hall. Among Joy's last recording projects were October 1996 sessions with Rasumofsky Quartett and oboist Sarah Francis, released as Rutland Boughton's String Quartets • Oboe Quartet No.1 CD collection by Hyperion. After retiring, Joy became a ceramist and painter; Hall died two months before her 103rd birthday.
