Benjamin Hochman

Photo: Frank Juergen

Winner of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2011, Steinway Artist Benjamin Hochman’s eloquent and virtuosic performances blend colorful artistry with poetic interpretation to the delight of audiences and critics alike. He performs in major cities around the world as an orchestral soloist, recitalist and chamber musician, working with an array of renowned musicians. Possessed of an intellectual and heartfelt musical inquisitiveness, his playing was described by the Vancouver Sun as “stylish and lucid, with patrician authority and touches of elegant wit.” Hochman frequently juxtaposes familiar and unfamiliar works in his concert programs, a talent that also extends to his thoughtful recorded repertoire, from Bach and Mozart to Kurtág and Peter Lieberson. The New York Times wrote of pianist Benjamin Hochman “classical music doesn’t get better than this.”

Hochman has performed at major venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, 92nd Street Y, Konzerthaus Wien, Berlin Konzerthaus, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Louvre in Paris, Liszt Academy in Budapest, Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Tivoli Theatre in Copenhagen, l'Auditori de Barcelona, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, and Kumho Art Hall in Seoul. Festival highlights include Marlboro, Ravinia, Santa Fe, Bard, Gilmore, Caramoor, Strings Music Festival, and Vail in North America, as well as European festivals including Lucerne, Spoleto, Verbier, Ruhr, Prussia Cove, and Israel Festival.

Hochman has performed as soloist with the New York, Los Angeles, Israel and Prague Philharmonics; the Chicago, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Houston, Seattle, American, New Jersey, Portland, Vancouver, and Jerusalem Symphonies; the New York String Orchestra, IRIS Orchestra in Memphis, National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Tel Aviv Soloists, and Istanbul State Orchestra. He has played under eminent conductors such as Gianandrea Noseda, David Robertson, John Storgårds, Pinchas Zukerman, Trevor Pinnock, Jun Märkl, Leon Botstein, Bramwell Tovey, Jaime Laredo, Joshua Weilerstein, Michael Stern, Jahja Ling, Kazuyoshi Akiyama, and Kaspar Zehnder.

In recent years, Hochman’s admiration for the rich orchestral repertoire has led him to pursue conducting. He was appointed musical assistant to Louis Langrée as well as to guest conductors at the 2016 Mostly Mozart Festival, including Thierry Fischer, Paavo Järvi and Jeffrey Kahane. He has served as assistant conductor to Leon Botstein for American Symphony Orchestra’s concerts at Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall, and to Emmanuel Villaume at Juilliard. A graduate of the prestigious Juilliard conducting program, where he received the Bruno Walter Scholarship and Charles Schiff Award, Hochman trained under Alan Gilbert and James Ross. Hochman is founder and music director of the Roosevelt Island Symphony, an ensemble consisting of New York’s top orchestral and chamber musicians which presents its fourth season in 2019-2020.

An enthusiastic collaborator, Hochman has worked with the Tokyo, Shanghai, Mendelssohn, Casals, Pražák, Daedalus, Escher, Jerusalem, and Borromeo Quartets; Zukerman ChamberPlayers; and members of the Guarneri, Juilliard, and Orion String Quartets, as well as pianists Jonathan Biss, Orion Weiss, and Shai Wosner, violinists Lisa Batishvili and Ani Kavafian. A dedicated advocate for contemporary music, Hochman has worked closely with composers such as Krzysztof Penderecki, Brett Dean, Philippe Hurel, Joan Tower, William Bolcom, Yehudy Wyner, Tamar Muskal, David Ludwig, Menachem Wiesenberg, Jesse Brault, Gilad Cohen and Max Grafe.

Benjamin Hochman has been selected to participate in prestigious residencies around the world such as The Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two) at Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Isaac Stern's International Chamber Music Encounters in Israel, and Carnegie Hall's Professional Training Workshop. Hochman received the "Outstanding Pianist" citation at the Verbier Academy, the Festorazzi Award from the Curtis Institute of Music, second prize at the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition, and the "Partosh Prize" awarded by the Israeli Minister of Culture. His performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio's Young Artist Showcase and Performance Today, WNET’s Sunday Arts, WQXR, 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, Hochman began his piano studies with Esther Narkiss at the Conservatory of the Rubin Academy, and Emanuel Krasovsky in Tel Aviv. He is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Claude Frank, and the Mannes College of Music, where he studied with Richard Goode. His studies were supported by the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. He serves on the piano faculty of Bard College Conservatory of Music. He is managed by Kirshbaum Associates Inc.

Benjamin Hochman has been a Steinway Artist since 2009.