The Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel
The Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel is an international center of musical excellence for talented young artists, selected through a highly competitive process from around the world and attracted by one of the finest training programs, in a haven of peace, nature, and concentration. Through long-term artist residences, the Music Chapel supports young artists at a decisive moment in their artistic lives—as they launch their careers— through companionship with renowned Masters in residence and Guest Masters, and regular concert opportunities in Belgium and beyond.
This advanced training is designed for emerging talents in piano, violin, viola, cello, chamber music, and voice. The Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel is supported by a wide artistic network: 70 Artists in residence representing more than 20 nationalities, nine Masters in residence, and a community of over 550 alumni, many of whom pursue international careers as soloists, chamber musicians, and educators.
Conservatory of Music Scholarships
One of the most extraordinary aspects of attending the Colburn Conservatory of Music is that it provides an opportunity for our students to explore the arts without financial barriers. Thanks to the vision of Richard D. Colburn, along with generous support from our donor community, 100% of our students attend on full scholarships, covering tuition, room, and board.
Our donor community recognizes the excellence of Conservatory students through the Louise Garland Scholarship and the Richard D. Colburn Endowment. Special appreciation goes to our donors who support the School through other avenues, including the Negaunee Conducting Fellows, Conservatory instruction, endowed faculty positions, instrument donations, and additional student and alumni support such as the Frances Rosen Violin Prize and the Amron-Sutherland Piano Scholarship.
If you would like to learn more about supporting the Colburn Conservatory of Music, contact philanthropy@colburnschool.edu
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colburn presents Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel
Featuring Gary Hoffman, Cello
February 22, 2026
Thayer Hall, 3 pm
Program
Piano Quintet in D Minor, Op. 89 (1887; 1905)
Molto moderato
Adagio
Allegretto Moderato
Yanyan Bao, Piano
Angela Chan, Violin I *
Duncan McDougall, Violin II
Adèle Ginestet, Viola *
Gary Hoffman, Cello
Intermission
Quatuor pour la fin du Temps (1940–41)
Liturgie de cristal
Vocalise, pour l’ange qui annonce la fin du temps
Abîme des oiseaux
Intermède
Louange à l’éternité de Jésus
Danse de la fureur, pour les sept trompettes
Fouillis d’arcs-en-ciel, pour l’Ange qui annonce la fin du temps
Louange à l’Immortalité de Jésus
Bogang Hwang, Piano
Jason Moon, Violin
Andrea Caputo, Clarinet
Gary Hoffman, Cello
* Artist in Residence at Queen Elizabeth Music Chapel
Featured Artist
gabriel fauré 1845–1924
olivier messiaen 1908–1992
This musical performance is approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes including intermission.
This performance is generously supported by the Geeting Family.
Unauthorized video or audio recording of Colburn School events by our guests is strictly prohibited. By attending, you agree that recordings of your image or voice at our performances may be used for publicity and promotional purposes.
Gary Hoffman, Cello
“We play the way we are.” Those few words have rarely sounded so true as in the case of Gary Hoffman. In front of audiences or his students at the Queen Elisabeth of Belgium Music Chapel and the most prestigious American campuses, he does not come to deliver a message. He stands before us, not to please us. He plays out of necessity, because music and life are one. It seems so simple in a world awash with images, slogans, and attitudes.
Like any poet of the concert platform, Mr. Hoffman took responsibility for his choices early on. Thanks to his parents, both professional musicians, and later to his teachers, Karl Fruh in Chicago and, even more vital, János Starker, he is a stranger to compromise. Winning the Premier Grand Prix of the Rostropovich Competition in Paris in 1986 opened doors for him. For all that, he has never made any concessions in his artistic decisions.
He plays to be himself. The rules impose themselves naturally: to master the instrument’s technique and enter step by step into the universe of a work. But to what end? If it is to seek perfection, Mr. Hoffman is happy to miss his turn … But if his playing awakens the beauty of a phrase and he can share its light with others, the artist is fulfilled. In his eyes, the cult of efficiency and volume never takes precedence over the expression of beauty, which has nurtured him since his youth, when he listened to the greatest musicians and discovered cinema and painting, his other passions. To build a philosophy of life through art: is there any nobler ambition?
He plays to transmit absolute respect for the score, but also the need to question tradition. To admire is not to be enslaved. His recordings for La Dolce Volta bear witness to this. To walk onto the platform, to observe the microphone that picks up the soundwaves, is to have already thought, to have forbidden oneself no reflection, even if it should run counter to current fashion. To young musicians, he passes on an appetite for doubt, curiosity, and risk, from the standard repertoire to new music. Why do we find so many artists of the past so appealing when we now readily acknowledge the imperfections in their playing? How could he not already sing in his mind’s ear, even before placing his bow on the strings of the Nicolò Amati cello of 1662, which accompanies him everywhere and once belonged to Leonard Rose?
He plays for an ideal, ever since his debut at London’s Wigmore Hall at the age of 15: to serve the composer, most assuredly, with a proposal, his proposal. It is impossible, in that case, to lie to oneself under the gaze of a Pablo Casals or an Artur Rubinstein. Mr. Hoffman recalls one of the most moving moments of his life when he saw Rubinstein walk across the platform to the keyboard. The simple movement of his body in space became the essence of his existence, the prelude to the ineffable. It is silence, that refuge between the notes that produces music. Music is sufficient unto itself: it soothes the sorrows of life. Mr. Hoffman makes no distinction between the word and the vibration of the string… All is delicious confusion and wonderful unpredictability. Like life.
To read the biographies of this afternoon’s student artists, scan this QR code.
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