Nyle Hallman — multi- instrumentalist, organist emeritus of Central Union Church, and co-founder with her husband, Roy Hallman, of the Honolulu Boy Choir — died Feb. 14 at The Queen’s Medical Center. She was 95.
“Mom and I lived together, we worked together after she retired from Central Union,” Hallman’s daughter, Kathryn “Kathy” Hallman said. “We worked together for many years. And then I was her caregiver and I just adored her. She was so easy to care for, she was happy and a joy. There wasn’t a day that I wasn’t grateful, and I’m gonna hang on to that because I’m gonna miss her terribly.”
Nyle Annette DuFresne was born and raised in Vancouver, Wash. She showed an interest in her mother’s Irish harp at an early age and was given a harp of her own when she was five. She started playing piano when she was seven, and playing the organ at 11. Within a few years she was playing the flute as well.
DuFresne and Roy Hallman began dating when they were students at Cascade College in Portland, Ore. They married in 1948 and continued their education at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, N.J.
They came to Hawaii in 1969 when Roy Hallman became the Minister of Music at Central Union Church and Nyle, the church organist. They expanded the church’s choral tradition by creating new choirs for children and youth.
In 1974 they took their choral traditions outside the church and created the Honolulu Boy Choir. The choir attracted many of Honolulu’s most talented young vocalists. HBC members included future Hawaii music stars Weldon Kekauoha, Jeff Rasmussen, Bobby Moderow Jr., Hailama Farden, Quinn Kelsey, Kala‘i Stern, and Sean Na‘auao.
Na‘auao was seven when he joined the choir in 1976.
“It developed me in ways that I still use today,” Na‘auao, a multi-Na Hoku Hanohano Award-winning recording artist, said recently. “All the little things we were taught … Holding out notes … how to blend with someone singing right next to you. All those things really, really helped me in my career in the music industry. The technical side (of singing). Enunciation was big … Facial expression was another big thing. You’d have to show an expression.”
Na‘auao aged out of the choir in 1983 when his voice changed, but he remained part of the HBC family.
“Every single (Hoku) award I won, I would get a letter from Mrs. Hallman telling me they were proud of me, that I was a living product of what they were trying to do when we boys were in the choir. Even this (past) December, I got a letter from her. I’m gonna miss her letters.”
Tony Nagatani, an HBC member from 1988 to 1993, said Nyle Hallman was “probably the most important musical influence of my life.”
“We had rehearsal for the Honolulu Boy Choir every Monday and Wednesday … and for an hour before every rehearsal, Mrs. Hallman would hold what essentially amounted to an hourlong music (and) voice lesson for any boy who wanted to spend the extra hour learning the songs and how to sing better.
“She tutored all of us on the finer points of music theory and helped us learn our music, and because HBC was a tuition-free not-for-profit, she was doing it out of the kindness of her heart,” Nagatani said.
More than 2,000 boys had passed through the choir when the couple retired in 1998.
Outside of her career with the church and the Honolulu Boy Choir, Hallman served as the principal harpist with the Portland Junior Symphony, the El Paso Symphony Orchestra, the Tulsa Philharmonic and the Honolulu Symphony; she returned to the Honolulu Symphony as its second harpist after she retired from the church in 1998.
In Waikiki, she played harp for the Don Ho Show at the Polynesian Palace, and for Emma Veary at the Halekulani and Royal Hawaiian Hotels; she also played for diners at the Bistro, the Hanohano Room, and Michel’s, and was in the orchestra for several Diamond Head Theatre musicals.
Long after she retired, Hallman continued to play the organ for weddings at churches. She was also a member of the group Flute a la Harpe, and played harp for weddings at hotels and outdoor venues until 2019. With the help of her daughter, she continued working until the age of 92.
In December 2020, Roy and Nyle Hallman received the Hawai‘i Academy of Recording Arts Lifetime Achievement Award for their career contributions to Hawaii’s music at Central Union Church and with the Honolulu Boy Choir. Unable to attend in person due to coronavirus restrictions, she watched via Zoom; she was represented at the ceremony by a video acceptance speech and a newly recorded piano track she had made to provide the instrumental support for four Honolulu Boy Choir alumni singing the HBC anthem, “This Is Our Island Home,” at the ceremony.
Hallman is also survived by her daughter Gretchen; her sisters, Janette and Anni; daughter-in-law Rebecca; grandchildren Cesar, Celia, Jonathan and Michael; and great- grandchildren David, Marleen, Henri, Sage, Aaron, Jonathan, Sierra and Tava.
She was predeceased by her husband Roy in 2007; her son, Bob, in 2021; and her sister Miriam, who also died in 2021.
Memorial services will be held March 23 at Central Union Church, 1660 S. Beretania St. Visitation will be at 2 p.m. followed by the service at 3 p.m.
