Violist Charts Solo Course on Music Festival Circuit

As a solo violist, Toby Hoffman has grown up without a musical role model. Virtuoso violinists always have the legendary itinerant Paganini to look back to, and cellists have the great icons of Pablo Casals and Mstislav Rostropovich to follow.

But Hoffman, who is back in town for his second year of the La Jolla Chamber Music Society’s SummerFest, has charted a musical course that does not rely on the traditional Lone Ranger virtuoso model. Like the surfer in search of the perfect wave, Hoffman travels the music festival circuit. A chamber musician who is not part of a regular string quartet--a traditional option for violists who choose to play chamber music--Hoffman is the universal spare violist.

This season, Hoffman’s summer schedule started in May with a string of European festivals from Italy to Finland. August found him back in the United States playing the Bartok Viola Concerto at the Flagstaff Festival of the Arts.

How does Hoffman choose his festivals?

“I think above all what the musical experience is going to be--the people who will be involved. It’s kind of like a Mafia, these summer festival groups and cliques. For instance, at the Chamber Music Northwest Festival in Seattle, violinist Mark Peskanov had asked to play some things together. It was one of the main reasons we went.”

At this year’s SummerFest, Hoffman enjoyed a kind of family reunion, performing with his brother, cellist Gary Hoffman, and his sister, harpist Deborah Hoffman.

“I wanted to play the Debussy Trio with my sister, so I was glad (SummerFest artistic director) Heiichiro Ohyama asked me to do that. He also wanted my sister to play the Ravel ‘Introduction and Allegro.’ As a family, we used to play that piece with a piano substituting for the clarinet and flute parts. My other brother, Joel, who is a composer, made the arrangement.”

Coming from a family of professional musicians, Hoffman could not escape music’s omnipresence. His mother, Esther Glazer, was a violinist--his first string instructor--and his father, Irwin Hoffman, was a conductor with the Chicago Symphony between the regimes of Jean Martinon and Georg Solti.

Just in time for the Mozart bicentennial, Hoffman has completed recording a comprehensive collection of Mozart’s chamber music with violinist Salvatore Accardo and the Prague Chamber Orchestra for the Nuova Era label.

New England connection. Thomas Nee, UC San Diego music professor and music director of the La Jolla University-Civic Orchestra, is celebrating his 30th year as director of the New Hampshire Summer Music Festival. The annual monthlong festival is held in the three quaint New Hampshire towns of Gilford, Plymouth and Centre Harbor. In addition to the residency of the Montclaire String Quartet, Nee’s program this year featured concerts by pianist Gustavo Romero. The noted San Diego native, winner of last year’s Clara Haskil prize, played two recitals last week.

Return of the Native. The musical group Pura Fe, which means “the pure faith,” will offer a program of Native American music at Centro Cultural de la Raza in Balboa Park at 8 p.m. Sept. 1. The visiting five-member ensemble, under the direction of Soni Moreno, will offer both traditional and contemporary music on authentic instruments.

Basic docent training. Opera buffs who want to spread the gospel of grand opera to schoolchildren and adult organizations should report for basic docent training starting Sept. 11. San Diego Opera offers an eight-week training course to enable docents to give the basic introduction to opera course and narrate the coming seasons’s operas. For more information about the docent program, call education director Roger Pines (232-7636) or docent chairwoman Susan Jay (286-9759).

Costa Mesa calling. When the Los Angeles Philharmonic announced it would no longer travel to San Diego for its Civic Theatre concert series, board members of the Orange County Philharmonic Society heard opportunity knocking. The society is offering San Diegans a package of five concerts at Costa Mesa’s Orange County Performing Arts Center, including three performances of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, a recital by Yugoslav pianist Ivo Pogorelich and a concert by the London Classical Players. Six hotels near the hall will offer series patrons special rates, according to the society.

The series opens with the London Classical Players on Nov. 3.

Hot tickets. Tickets for performances of the La Jolla Chamber Society’s SummerFest ’90 are so scarce that even the society’s director, Neale Perl, was pleading with patrons for a spare ticket before Sunday night’s Sherwood Auditorium concert. Two SummerFest events for which tickets are still available are this Sunday’s two concerts at UC San Diego’s Mandeville Auditorium. The 4 p.m. concert will feature the festival’s young “rising stars” in a chamber music program, and the 7 p.m. concert will present SummerFest soloists with members of the San Diego Symphony in a chamber orchestra feast under the baton of Andre Previn and Heiichiro Ohyama. Tickets can be obtained only through the SummerFest office at 459-3728.

Chorale roundup. Music Director Frank Almond will audition new voices for the San Diego Master Chorale on Aug. 24 and 25 at San Diego State University. Among the chorale’s musical projects this coming season are performances of Mahler’s Second Symphony and the Mozart “Gran Mass” with the San Diego Symphony. Singers should prepare a solo work of their choosing and schedule the audition by calling 234-SING.