The Juilliard School

Alumni News
Spotlight

A Case Study in the Unforseen

Miles Hoffman

Though many know him only through his insightful music commentary on National Public Radio, Miles Hoffman's life encompasses music's every facet. Founder and artistic director of the six-member American Chamber Players (in residence at the Library of Congress), Hoffman (M.M.'77, viola) is also a frequent soloist with symphony orchestras, a popular concert host and speaker, and the author of The NPR Classical Music Companion. He even made his debut as a conductor just a year ago. The funny thing is, it took awhile for music to claim him. "All doctors' children are born with one foot in medical school," he explains. "At some point, they have to decide whether to put the second foot in or take the first foot out."

For the 54-year-old Hoffman—who graduated as a pre-med student from Yale, and had started childhood violin lessons only because a cousin played the instrument—both feet became aligned toward Juilliard when he fell in love with playing chamber music. After earning his master's degree, he freelanced in New York for a year before joining the National Symphony Orchestra (led by Mstislav Rostropovich) for seven years. Rostropovich's "remarkable" private master classes for orchestra members, Hoffman says, have been "fundamental to my teaching, as well as to my playing."

When he put on a pair of headphones during a radiothon for the N.S.O.—"and enjoyed it," he admits—Hoffman got the idea for a funny radio show for Washington's WETA in 1981. Little did he imagine it would lead, eight years later, to a 13-year stint enlightening nationwide audiences with "Coming to Terms," a listener-friendly tour through classical-music terminology that Hoffman was invited to provide on NPR's Performance Today by Martin Goldsmith, when Goldsmith (formerly of WETA) became that program's host in 1989. (Performance Today is now hosted by Fred Child, and produced and distributed by American Public Media.)

Now a music commentator on NPR's Morning Edition, Hoffman shares his insights on everything from the importance of the bow for a string player to how a symphony hunts for a good conductor. Because the segments are within a news show, themes are usually "pegged" to something current or seasonal. (Among his Thanksgiving topics have been "The Other Kind of Drumsticks" and "Making Music with Tuneful 'Leftovers.'") "The best ideas are always from my wife—and sometimes from my children," he laughs.

Hoffman founded the Library of Congress Summer Chamber Music Festival in 1982, which led to the formation of the American Chamber Players (with whom he regularly tours the U.S. and Canada). Over the years, he has commissioned and/or premiered many new works, and says those "that have turned out to be good pieces" are among his proudest musical accomplishments. "There are lots of people who play well," he explains, "but if you had something to do with bringing into being a work of art that has lasting value, that's important." Hoffman is outspoken about what constitutes good music—and insists that those who criticize his standards have misunderstood them. "People are entitled to their taste," he says. "But all too often, audiences have been blamed for not liking music that isn't very good. It's the composer's job—no matter what musical language he is using—to make a piece intelligible and coherent on first hearing. Intelligibility doesn't have anything to do with reducing quality. Good music will reveal more and more layers of interest on subsequent hearings—but I don't think there's a great piece of music ever written that hasn't, on first hearing, given the impression that something worthwhile is going on."

When he is teaching, a story told by Helen Hayes during her speech at Hoffman's 1977 Juilliard commencement often serves as an illustration of what he calls "the necessity of the dualities of performing." After Laurence Oliver had given a fabulous performance one night—"the audience went crazy and the hairs were standing up on the backs of the necks of all the performers"—Olivier stormed off the stage and refused to talk to anyone. "Larry, what is it?" Hayes had asked. "You were absolutely fantastic tonight!" And Olivier had replied, "Yes, I know! That's just the problem—I don't know how I did it!" The story, "wonderful on so many levels," says Hoffman, is an illustration of "what our job is as a performer. Things happen that you can't always control or expect, yet it's our job to try and produce certain effects—to produce beauty and wonderment on demand."

It's essential to understand that unpredictability extends to the course of one's career as well, says Hoffman. "Sometimes things don't happen when you think they should, but it turns out that it's the right time when they do." And you never know what you learn or experience that's going to be useful or meaningful later on. He calls his own career "a case study in the unforeseen that sometimes happens if you've started out by trying to do something that you like to do."

—Jane Rubinsky

Alumni Relations

Discover Your Benefits