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Theo Hoffman
Theo Hoffman is among the most versatile and refined young singers of his generation. Mr. Hoffman will perform Josef K. in the American Premier of The Trial by Philip Glass at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis in 2017. Mr. Hoffman will be presented in recital at the Kennedy Center in the 2017-18 season by Vocal Arts DC as the Gerald Perlman Emerging Artist. In 2016, he began his residency with the Marlboro Music Festival, where he gave the first Marlboro performance of Othmar Schoeck’s Notturno. Mr. Hoffman will return to Marlboro Music in 2017.
The Manhattan-born baritone joins LA Opera in 2016-17 for its prestigious Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program. There he sings Il medico in Macbeth opposite Placido Domingo, Second Nazarene in Salome under the baton of James Conlon, Hermann in Les Contes d’Hoffmann, First Editor in Wonderful Town, and cover Horemhab in Akhnaten. Mr. Hoffman joined forces with composer/conductor Matthew Aucoin in a series of after-hours concerts at LA Opera entitled The Song: From Schubert to Springsteen as well as a chamber concert in conjunction with The Colburn School. Hoffman returns to LA Opera in their 2017-18 season to perform main stage roles, to be announced.
Last season Mr. Hoffman made his debut with Atlanta Opera as Schaunard in La bohème and returned to The Juilliard School as a Master of Music candidate under the mentorship of Sanford Sylvan. There he sang his first performances of Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, Le Directeur in Les Mamelles de Tirésias, and covered the title role in Der Kaiser von Atlantis. Additionally, he joined Arizona Musicfest as the baritone soloist in Carmina Burana, as well as the New York Philharmonic for a chamber concert of Wolf and Mahler.
In the 2014-15 season, Mr. Hoffman joined the Cecilia Chorus of New York for Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, marking his Carnegie Hall debut and sang Orff’s Carmina Burana as a guest artist at Vassar College. He performed Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas with New York Lyric Opera and debuted with the Portland Symphony Orchestra as Jailer, First Officer, and Second Commissioner in Dialogues des carmélites. Mr. Hoffman spent summer 2015 at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in the company’s Mozart Residency.
Mr. Hoffman completed his Bachelor of Music degree at The Juilliard School, where he was the winner of the 2015 Juilliard Vocal Arts Honors Recital and was presented in recital at Alice Tully Hall. Additionally at Juilliard, he performed Bob in Menotti’s Old Maid and the Thief, the Count in Le nozze di Figaro, Lunardo in Le donne curiose, and covered Tarquinius in The Rape of Lucretia. He made his professional debut with the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis as Thierry in Dialogues des carmélites, where he has also covered Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, Tomeš in Smetana’s The Kiss, and Major-General Stanley in The Pirates of Penzance while a Gerdine Young Artist.
A fast-rising recitalist, Mr. Hoffman made his debut with the New York Festival of Song in 2013 in its Ports of Call program at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts and later performed at Carnegie Hall with the organization in its 2014 spring gala commemorating Leonard Bernstein. Since then, he has joined NYFOS for their After Hours and NYFOS Next series, as well as Craigslistlieder and Other Love Songs, and Great American Songwriting Teams at Juilliard. In 2016, he was named a member of their Artists Council after his curatorial involvement in Schubert/Beatles, which makes future appearances with Moab Music Festival and Lyric Opera of Kansas City. In 2014, he made his Alice Tully Hall debut in Juilliard Songfest, at which he performed Britten’s Songs and Proverbs of William Blake with Brian Zeger. A former SongFest Stern fellow, his performances included joining Martin Katz for Ravel’s Don Quichotte a Dulcinée and a recital curated by John Musto that included the composer’s The Brief Light at The Colburn School in Los Angeles. His other recital and chamber music credits include Barber’s Dover Beach with Juilliard ChamberFest as well as works on Juilliard’s Songbook and Liederabend series and performances at the Chautauqua Institution and the Eastman School of Music.
Mr. Hoffman made his first public appearance on the Metropolitan Opera stage in March as a Grand Finalist in the 2016 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions after winning in the Eastern Region. Mr. Hoffman is a 2015 third prize-winner in the Gerda Lissner Foundation’s International Vocal Competition, the International Crescendo Music Awards 2014 Silver Medalist, and the recipient of a Richard Gaddes Career Grant from the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.