Harmonious Bonds: Reflections on Friendships Formed Through Chamber Music

By Brian Hoffman

I'd like to share some thoughts about chamber music and the lasting friendships it has helped me to make over the years. I believe playing chamber music is a fun way to explore and share with our instruments. It’s an essential counterpart to studying solo and orchestral music. Ask any professional classical musician what music they play just for fun, and likely you will hear some version of "chamber music with friends". It’s no wonder that even the great soloists on today’s world stage increasingly turn to performing chamber music together… It's more fun this way!

Some of the best friends and memories of my own life are closely tied to this music. I’ve been fortunate to have had opportunities to travel through performing chamber music, including 10 tours covering the length of the United Kingdom, several European countries, Canada, and Mexico, and many opportunities to explore America. While I can remember these places vividly, and all the fun of traveling with the other musicians, what I remember most and want to share is how we made lasting friendships through chamber music.

In high school, I began playing cello regularly in a string quartet with some classmates. We called ourselves the “Genesis Quartet.” I don’t remember exactly why we chose that name, but I do remember how fun it was to discover this new musical language, the string quartet, with my friends. We rehearsed every week at our violist’s house. His dad, Mr. Orihuela, was a professional jazz percussionist, and we could make as much noise there as we wanted. Mr. Orihuela would sometimes give us informal “coachings” before we started playing for other musicians and coaches. The support we received from these early mentors gave us confidence, and soon we started sharing our music in public. 

One of my favorite memories of this time is when I went back to my old elementary school, where I first started the cello in a group class years earlier, and performed with my high school quartet in front of the whole school. The wonder and joy of those kids, and hearing their enthusiastic reactions after we played, reminded me of my early fascination with music. It felt like we had just done something meaningful for the students. After that, our quartet continued playing together, performing recitals at retirement communities and even for Hospice care. Through these experiences, we learned firsthand the healing, calming, and restorative effect that music can have. Our quartet ultimately disbanded as we each left for college, but I am still long-distance friends with several of these original quartet members decades later!

A short time later, as a freshman at the Oberlin Conservatory, I was assigned to play cello in a piano trio with a violinist from Denmark and a pianist from Korea. We had to quickly figure out how to work together and communicate despite speaking different languages. In this process, we became very close friends and eventually competed nationally as both “Trio Devoto” and “Bedriska Trio”, winning titles including National Finalists of the MTNA Chamber Music Competition. I believe that our friendship offstage directly contributed to our success onstage, and, while we sadly lost our violinist some years ago, the pianist and I are still friends today! 

While pursuing my Master’s degree at Northwestern University, one of my assistantships was as cellist in the NU graduate piano trio, with an American pianist and first, a violinist from Denmark, and later a violinist from Iceland. Once again, the experience of sharing something that connected us, chamber music, while learning about and appreciating our differences, was teaching me a life lesson I didn’t even realize I was learning at the time, but for which I am grateful today. The pianist and I remain friends, and shortly after I began teaching at Midwest Conservatory, we performed several duo recitals here in Schaumburg/Chicagoland before touring with our program at universities throughout the Midwest. And yes, we’re still long-distance friends with our two violinists, who now perform in Europe and the Middle East!

Another friendship I formed through chamber music is with our recent MCM masterclass clinician, Kate Carter, of the Blue Violet Duo. Kate and I have known each other since we formed a string quartet at Northwestern, along with a violinist, Rodolfo, who would later become Kate’s husband. Together, we all had the life-changing experience of performing in a masterclass for the world-famous Guarneri Quartet. Remembering this experience now is made sweeter by memories of the fun we had in preparing together for the masterclass, the frequent late-night rehearsals, the early morning coachings…we went through all of it TOGETHER. And we still are friends and support each other’s musical projects today!

I could write about so many more friendships formed through chamber music—most recently, the Hoffman Trio with MCM faculty violinist Yuri Uomizu and pianist Yuri Ebihara, both of whom I consider dear friends and peers. (Remarkably, we were all born within the same few months, on opposite sides of the Earth!)

There’s also longtime collaborators, soprano Christine Steyer and pianist Michael Finlay. Christine, who I toured with internationally and who was an amazing support to myself and fellow artists during the COVID-19 pandemic, taking so much of her time to connect fellow musicians to resources to offset our suddenly lost performance income. Michael, who I’ve been friends with since high school when we were cabin mates at the Interlochen Arts Camp in Michigan, and amazingly our musical paths have continued to cross over the years in unexpected ways.

In closing, one of the greatest gifts that studying music has brought to my life is that I continue to make new friends through chamber music. This weekend, I am excited to begin rehearsing Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet with John Bruce Yeh, a Principal Clarinetist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Yeh is an esteemed musician whose performances I’ve had the opportunity to admire from the audience many times, and now in just a few weeks, I’ll get to perform amazing chamber music alongside him (and hopefully call him a new friend)! 

As I get older, it's exciting to think about all the music and friends I have yet to discover through playing chamber music. I wish for my students, and all our Midwest Conservatory students, to have their own amazing experiences of making friends through chamber music, whether yours is a group that meets for fun, one that competes for prizes, or perhaps seeks to volunteer, to teach, to travel…the possibilities are wide open!

If this sounds exciting, join us this July 14-19 for our 16th annual Summer Chamber Music Camp, with a Concert at the Schaumburg Library on July 20th!  Participants will join a chamber music group and a professional coach for daily 2.5-hour sessions, and at the end of camp, each group will perform in a fun live concert at the library – it is free and open to the public! 

Come and experience the life-changing effects and lasting friendships that can come from playing chamber music! Sign up here today.