Gary Hoffman is one of the outstanding cellists of our time, combining instrumental mastery, great beauty of sound, and a poetic sensibility in his distinctive and memorable performances. He gained international renown upon his victory as the first North American to win the Rostropovich International Competition in Paris in 1986. A frequent soloist with the world’s most noted orchestras, he has appeared with the Chicago, London, Montreal, Toronto, San Francisco, Baltimore and National Symphony orchestras as well as the English, Moscow and Los Angeles Chamber orchestras, the Orchestre National de France, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and the Netherlands and Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra for the Blossom Festival and Philadelphia Orchestra, among many others. He collaborates regularly with such celebrated conductors as André Prévin, Charles Dutoit, Mstislav Rostropovich, Pinchas Zuckerman, Andrew Davis, Herbert Blomstedt, Kent Nagano, Jésus Lopez-Cobos and James Levine.
Gary Hoffman performs in major recital and chamber music series throughout the world, as well as at such prestigious festivals as Ravinia, Marlboro, Aspen, Bath, Evian, Helsinki, Verbier, Mostly Mozart, Schleswig-Holstein and Stresa. He is a frequent guest of string quartets including the Emerson, Tokyo, Borromeo, Brentano, and Ysaÿe, and is an Artist Member of the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society. Gary Hoffman has given the premières of concertos by Laurent Petitgirard, Joel Hoffman, Renaud Gagneux, Gil Shohat, and Graciane Finzi, and collaborated in the French première of Elliot Carter’s Cello Concerto with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo. During summer, he plays in various Festivals as Ravinia, Santa Fe, Bloomington, Lincoln Center, Kobé and Prades, among other engagements.
Born in Vancouver in 1956, Gary Hoffman devotes time to teaching, as well, having been the youngest faculty appointee in the history of the Indiana University School of Music, where he remained for eight years. He regularly holds master-classes world-wide. Residing in Paris, he is an active recording artist for the BMG (RCA), Sony, EMI and Le Chant du Monde labels. Gary Hoffman performs on a 1662 Nicolo Amati, the “ex- Leonard Rose”.
