March 2006
Charmaine Camilleri, Fairfax Community Newspapers

“[Chloe Hall] has one of the strongest new voices in contemporary Australian folk music. Her new album, White Street… highlihgts her best music yet.”

Music dream fulfilled

Singer-songwriter Chloe Hall always dreamed of making her mark in the music industry. Growing up influenced by 1960′s Irish folk music and cool Bob Dylan tunes, she scrambled lyrics together. “Musicians would have sessions in my parents’ barn in Ireland in the ’60′s” she recalls. “[My parents] fell in love with Irish folk music and it stayed with them when they moved to Australia.”

Nowadays, the self-managed artist has one of the strongest new voices in contemporary Australian folk music.

She hit the music scene in 2000 with a seven-track CD, White Sky, which earned her glowing reviews and a nomination for Best Unsigned Artiste at that year’s Music Industry Critics Awards in Adelaide. “I wanted to be a musician from as far as I can remember. I understood music and loved it from an early age,” the Northcote resident says.

Hall is set to entertain in an intimate acoustic performance at the Brunswick Music Festival.

Hall was always ambitious. She first strummed a guitar at 16 and soon scored gigs at open-mic nights at folk and acoustic venues across Melbourne. In her 20′s, she hit national and Melbourne folk festival circuits. And in 2002 she released a self-titled EP. In the middle of last year, Hall established the One Tree Hill record company to ensure “creative control” of her work. Her new album, White Street, in stores now, highlights her best music yet, says Hall, who admits facing rejections in her musical journey. “I feel fortunate… it’s a hard road, but it’s a beautiful one, too.”

There’s certainly no looking back at the realisation of her destiny. “It’s my life. It’s what I’m living and breathing for.”