Departments
Education
MM Piano Performance, University of Texas at Austin
BM & MM in Piano Performance, University of Texas at Austin
Ensembles
martha&monica (cello and piano duo)
LINES Ballet international tour (2012-2014)
San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Opera Center and Ballet (2002-2012)
Royal Danish Opera (2006-2008)
Q&A
What is your favorite recording? Why?
Pierre Boulez "La Mer" Cleveland Orchestra 1993- it's an absolute masterclass in tempo, structural control and timbre, and I've heard it so many times but it still gives me goosebumps.
What are you passionate about outside of music?
Cooking
Who were your major teachers?
Santiago Rodriguez, Danielle Martin, Mark Pinzow
What is a favorite quote that you repeatedly tell students?
Think 10 times, play 1 time.
What question do you wish students would ask sooner rather than later?
What do you mean?
What was the defining moment when you decided to pursue music as a career?
When I attended "The Magic Flute" in Berlin, growing up in Germany
What was a turning point in your career?
Working at the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen, and having people believe in me.
If you weren't a musician or teacher, what do you think you would be doing now?
Helping.
What is your daily practice routine?
Scales in legato vs staccato and multiple rhythms, and then very slow practice on passages, practicing multiple opposite rhythms of the texture on the page. SCORE STUDY. Thinking through what to do. mapping out tempos and studying harmonic structure.
If you could play only three composers for the rest of your life, who would they be?
Beethoven, Verdi, Debussy
From a music history perspective, what year and city are most important to you, and why?
1770, Beethoven's birth year, and Vienna. It all started with Beethoven- everything I love about music started with Beethoven- the emotion held tautly in a slowly unwinding phrase, and then released either joyfully or with pain- it's all so human. Vienna is the city of musicians! Countless musicians trained there, and the city is still a vital place of music-making and legacy.
What is your unrealized project?
To play all 4 Ring operas in a production- so far only Das Rheingold for me.
What do you think makes a concert experience unique?
When the audience experiences the music naturally, without previous bias or thought...giving in to the room, to the ideas of the composer without any reservation. It's very unusual.
Please list your most important collaborations.
Royal Danish Opera and their Ring cycle, Kent Nagano and Elliott Carter's "What's Next" and Gunther Schuller conducting me in Rachmaninoff.
What recordings can we hear you on? (Please list five or fewer and specify record label.)
1.) martha & monica (cello/piano Beethoven, Boulanger, Carter and Poulenc) on Spotify
2.) "The Life before us" - works by John Bilotta on Navona Records
3.) "Mass for Friends" by Janis Mercer on Centaur Records
4.) Richard Aldag: "Broadway Boogie-Woogie" with Marnie Breckenridge and Jennifer Kloetzel on Albany Records.
5.) Gino Robair: "I, Norton: An Opera in Real Time" on Rastascan Records
Media
Justice Yates, baritone w/Hadley McCarroll
Biography
Hadley McCarroll is a celebrated Bay Area pianist renowned for a versatility across solo, concerto, chamber, and operatic literature. Concerto appearances: Santa Rosa Symphony, Symphony of the Redwoods, and Piedmont Chamber Orchestra. Solo highlights: Flower Piano, SFMOMA, Noontime Concerts, and Old First Concerts. Festival and recital collaborations: sopranos Nino Machaidze (Festival del Sole), Laura Bohn (Concerts in the Barn, Olympic Peninsula), and Kronos Quartet founding violist Hank Dutt.
As an opera coach and répétiteur, she has a long history with Berkeley Opera (now West Edge Opera)—including working on their landmark production of Francesconi "Quartett" and Janáček "The Cunning Little Vixen" — alongside roles at Royal Danish Opera, San Francisco Opera (including the ballet department), San Diego Opera, and Utah Festival Opera. Under Kent Nagano, she coached premieres by Elliott Carter, Unsuk Chin, and Philippe Manoury, and prepared Wagnerian repertoire with Jane Eaglen and Linda Watson.
Partnerships in the contemporary arena include sfSound and the cello/piano duo martha & monica, spanning performances of works by Xenakis, Grisey, and Adès. Operatic collaborations with Left Coast Chamber Ensemble include the premieres of "Tenderhooks" and "Dorothea and Artemisia."
In dance, she has worked with SF Opera Ballet on John Adams "Nixon in China", and toured alongside Metropolitan Opera mezzo Maya Lahyani with LINES Ballet (Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris and Joyce Theater, NYC)
Her 2026–27 season includes appearances at University of Houston, with the Oakland Civic Orchestra as soloist in Rachmaninoff "Concerto No. 2," and John Cage "Sonatas and Interludes" on the 88+ series.