Joel Hoffman: Three Piano Trios

Joel Hoffman was born in Canada and received degrees from the University of Wales and the Juilliard School. Among his distinguished teachers were Elliott Carter, Milton Babbitt, Alun Hoddinott and Easley Blackwood. Currently, Hoffman is Professor of Composition at the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music. His music has been commissioned and performed by the Cincinnati Symphony, the National Chamber Orchestra, the American Harp Society and the Atheneum Quartet of the Berlin Philharmonic. His compositions draw from such diverse stylistic sources as Eastern European folk music and bebop jazz. There are two qualities that are common to all of his works: a focus on melody and a pervasive rhythmic vitality. The three Piano Trios represent, in his words, "...a kind of central musical point for me, in that the medium incorporates three instruments with which I have the greatest and most intimate connection possible: my mother was a superb violinist, the cello is the instrument of my cellist-brother Gary and the piano is my instrument. So composing for this medium, for me, is about as natural an activity as composing gets. I find that my essential musical questions about sound, structure, harmony, melody and meaning in general are the ones I continually address when writing for the piano trio."