Torfinn Hoffart is a Norwegian cellist and conductor who has done outstanding work with talented children and young musicians for several years. He is employed at the Barratt Due Institute of Music in Oslo, where he is Concert Manager. In addition to this, he is a very popular cello teacher, and has always had many talented students.
Torfinn Hoffart started out playing the piano, but at the age of nine, he experienced the cellists in the local orchestra, and then he was hooked.
Cello was the right instrument for him. His father, who was a professional singer, and his mother, who was passionately engaged in music, inspired all their four children to practice on their instruments. This resulted in two professional violinists and two cellists.
Torfinn studied with professor Geir Tore Larsen at the Norwegian Academy of Music, and with professor Aage Kvalbein at the University of Oslo, where he subsequently got his Master degree in 1996. His Norwegian grade is cand. philol. In his Master studies he analyzed the trends of instrumental pedagogic evolution between the 1850’s and the 1990’s, specializing in cello didactics and the Dresden school traditions.
He has played with all the professional Norwegian orchestras during the1980’s and 90’s and participated in many tours in Europe. From 1993 he was working closely with Alf Richard Kraggerud with Valdres sommersymfoni and other summer courses. From 2006 he concentrated on building his own cello academy, founding the Absolutt Cello ensemble in 2007 in cooperation with the Barratt Due Institute of Music. The last 7 years he has cooperated with the cello professors at Prague Conservatoruy in Prague, Czech Rep and with a music school for talented youths in Liberec. During 2014 he is also touring as a conductor and leader for the Soloist ensemble, giving masterclasses and concerts in Berlin, and later for a cello academy tour to Prague and Berlin.
Absolutt Cello is an all cello group with approx. 40 members on 4 different levels: Basic, Medium, Advanced and Soloist. Young cellists from all over Norway can enlist, and they meet regularly to play in ensemble with Torfinn as leader and conductor. This unique Absolutt Cello group concept has been used in Valdres Summer Symphony’s program for cellists the last 5 years. For more information, see www.celloifokus.blogspot.com.
Torfinn is playing a Leon Bernardel 1926 cello.