NPR’s Miles Hoffman to Serve as Guest Artist and Make Debut as Conductor at Converse

Miles Hoffman, music commentator for National Public Radio’s flagship program “Morning Edition,” will serve as the guest artist in residence for the Petrie School of Music at Converse College May 2-8. A nationally renowned violist, Hoffman will lecture, conduct master classes and make his debut as conductor with the Converse Symphony Orchestra in a free concert May 8 at 8 p.m. in Twichell Auditorium.

“I’m excited at the opportunity to conduct such talented young players, and it will be an extra pleasure to perform as soloist with them on the same concert. We’ll be discovering some great music together,” said Hoffman from his Maryland home.

As music commentator for NPR’s Morning Edition, Hoffman is regularly heard by a national audience of nearly 14 million people, and he has been a featured lecturer for orchestras, universities, chamber music series, festivals, and many other organizations. His musical commentary, “Coming to Terms,” a listener-friendly tour through the many foreign words and technical terms peculiar to the world of classical music, was heard weekly throughout the U.S. from 1989 to 2002 on NPR’s Performance Today, and his book, The NPR Classical Music Companion, is now in its eighth printing from the Houghton Mifflin Company.

Hoffman has appeared as viola soloist with many orchestras around the country, performing a broad repertoire that ranges from baroque to contemporary compositions. He is also violist and artistic director of the American Chamber Players, with whom he regularly tours the U.S. and Canada. With the American Chamber Players he has recorded works of Mozart, Bruch, Bloch, Stravinsky, and Rochberg for a series of compact discs produced by the Library of Congress. A graduate of Yale University and the Juilliard School, Hoffman was recently awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Centenary College of Louisiana in recognition of his achievements as a performer and educator.