[Chamber Music] Dars-Hoffman: Music for Resistance

The genesis of art is among the most public of private acts, deeply personal yet unshakably contextual. “Resistance,” the Hoffman-Dars duo’s debut album, looks at the charged feelings provoked by complex, painfully strong, and deeply human pieces written by 20th-century composers living under the Soviet Union and Third Reich; equally, it examines 21st-century resistance to that very music, both symbolically and politically, and revisits one of the works in the form of a new composition.

They will perform the following pieces:

Senderovas : 4 pieces for cello and piano

Shostakovich : Sonata for cello and piano

Ustwolskaya : Grand Duet

ABOUT THE MUSICIANS

The Duo Hoffman - Dars is a versatile ensemble, founded in 2016 in Brussels. Winners of the 2017 “Luigi Nono” Chamber Music Competition in Italy, Natania Hoffman and Monika Dars have performed together at the Pyrmonter Music Salon (Germany), the Niemeyer Center (Spain), the Vilnius Museum of Applied Arts (Lithuania), the Academia Belgica (Italy), and the Brussels Musical Instrument Museum (Belgium), among other venues. They gave the European premiere of Gao Weijie’s work “Longing for Shu” and have worked with mentors such as Gary Hoffman. This is their debut album.

Italian-American cellist Natania Hoffman is a thought-provoking musician whose performances and masterclasses have been heard all over the world. She has performed as a soloist with the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie, Namur Chamber Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and Lakeland Civic Orchestra, among others; festivals include the Ravinia Steans Institute of Music, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, and Amici della Musica Florence. As a member of Trio Agora, she won 1st prize in the 2018 Anton Rubinstein chamber music competition and released three albums. A dedicated teacher, she is Professor of Chamber Music at the “L. Canepa” conservatory in Sassari. 

Lithuanian pianist Monika Dars has performed in Europe, USA, South America, China and Canada. She has performed as a soloist with National Warsaw Philharmonic Chamber, Lviv Chamber, Lithuanian State Symphony, Kaunas Symphony, Melomania Symphony orchestras and performed chamber music with F. Helmerson, J. Grimm, Ph. Grafin, D. Guerrier among other musicians. With the Urban Piano Quartet she won the Supernova (2019), Nordic Strings (2020) chamber music competitions as well as became finalists in Schoenfeld Competition in China (2023) and recorded a CD. In 2021 Monika received the Golden Parnassus award from Podkarpacka Fundacja Rozwoju Kultury (Poland).