Benjamin Hochman
piano

Pianist Benjamin Hochman is achieving widespread acclaim for his performances as an orchestral soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. Though only in his mid-twenties, he is an imaginatively mature artist with an innate ability to combine beauty of line within the overall shape of a piece. The Washington Post praised his "flowing artistry" in a recital at the National Gallery of Art and The Cincinnati Post wrote that he "shone in his Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra debut" and had "a crystal clear tone and articulation to match" performing Mozart's Piano Concerto, K. 271 under Jaime Laredo. After hearing Benjamin Hochman at the Marlboro Festival, pianist Mitsuko Uchida recommended him to conductor Zubin Mehta, resulting in his first orchestral engagement with the Israel Philharmonic two seasons ago and an immediate re-engagement with the orchestra for his Carnegie Hall debut. Pinchas Zukerman has additionally invited him to perform and tour with the Zukerman ChamberPlayers.

In the 2007-2008 season Benjamin Hochman appears with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and the Portland Symphony. He collaborates with the Daedalus Quartet at Lincoln Center, and performs at the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society and New York Society for Ethical Culture. Mr. Hochman's guest appearances includes chamber music with the New York Philharmonic; Bravo! Vail, where he performs Saint-Saëns's Carnival of the Animals with the New York Philharmonic under Bramwell Tovey; and the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival. He returns to his native Israel and performs with the Raanana Symphonette and the Jerusalem Symphony under Leon Botstein. In 2008 he returns to the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival to perform the Bach Goldberg Variations.

Mr. Hochman gave his New York solo recital debut at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the 2006-2007 season with a program of Bach, Berg, and Schubert; of the Berg The New York Times wrote it, "made a strong contrast, warmly anchored in a past century and speaking with what now sounds like a kind of innocence, from its expressive earnestness to the ethereal notes of the close. It is strong, young music, and fits the pianist like a glove." That season he performed Bernstein's Symphony No. 2 Age of Anxiety with the American Symphony Orchestra under Leon Botstein and collaborated with pianist Jonathan Biss, touring in a special project of piano music for four hands. He also appeared at the Kennedy Center and 92nd Street Y performing Dvo?ák's Piano Quintet with the Zukerman ChamberPlayers, participated in Carnegie Hall's Young Artists workshops with Osvaldo Golijov and Dawn Upshaw, and toured his native Israel.

Benjamin Hochman's previous seasons included many important orchestral debuts and re-engagements, as well as recital and chamber music projects. He performed Beethoven's First Piano Concerto in his Seattle Symphony debut (described by The Seattle Times as "remarkably poetic") with conductor Jun Märkl and joined conductor Pinchas Zukerman and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a Mozart Piano Concerto project with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. He made his Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra debut under Jaime Laredo and also appeared with him at the Vermont Symphony. In May 2006 he was re-engaged by the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa for an all-Mozart program led by Pinchas Zukerman. He also gave recitals at the Klavier-Festival Ruhr (Germany), Israel's Voice of Music Series, and the Brattleboro Music Center in Vermont, among others.

Benjamin Hochman has performed at the Marlboro, Ravinia, Santa Fe, Spoleto/Italy, Lucerne, Verbier, Bravo! Vail, Eastern Shore (Maryland), and Vancouver festivals, and the International Chamber Music Encounters under the direction of the late Isaac Stern in Jerusalem. A passionate chamber musician, Benjamin Hochman continues his relationship with Lincoln Center's prestigious "Chamber Music Society Two" program. Additionally, he has collaborated in chamber music performances with members of the Guarneri, Orion, Mendelssohn, Prazak, and Daedalus Quartets and with Jaime Laredo, Sharon Robinson, Cho-Liang Lin, Ani Kavafian, Ralph Kirshbaum, and toured with the Jerusalem String Quartet throughout the northeastern United States. In recent seasons he has played recitals at Vancouver's Recital Society, the 'Rising Star' series at both Ravinia and the Gilmore Keyboard Festival, Santa Fe's "Artist Circle" series, New York's Town Hall, Italy's Spoleto Festival, and the Louvre.

The pianist's honors include the "Outstanding Pianist" citation at the Verbier Academy, the Festorazzi Award given by the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music, second prize at the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition, the "Partosh Prize" awarded by the Israeli Minister of Culture for best performance of an Israeli work, and first prize at the National Piano Competition of the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem. His performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio's Young Artist Showcase and Performance Today, CBC (Canada), ABC (Australia), Radio France, and Israel's Voice of Music radio station, as well as on the European television network, Mezzo.

Born in Jerusalem in 1980, Benjamin Hochman graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and the Mannes College of Music in New York where his principal teachers were Claude Frank and Richard Goode. His studies were supported by the America Israel Cultural Foundation.