Sad death of a viola livewire

Many US musicians have been shocked and saddened by the death this weekend of Miles Hoffman, known as Mike, after a long illness.

Founder and music director of the American Chamber Players, he was a longrunning commentator on NPR’s Morning Edition and a general livewire on an overwhelmingly conformits scene.

His friend Max Raimi writes: ‘He was a superb violist, a terrific administrator (He kept the American Chamber Players thriving for decades in a national environment hardly welcoming to classical chamber music), brilliant with languages, an uncanny mimic, an accomplished writer with two books and innumerable published articles to his credit, and a uniquely eloquent explicator and advocate for classical music. He was a regular guest on NPR’s “Morning Edition”, discussing classical music with Liane Hansen from time to time.
And Mike had extraordinary courage. He walked out of a comfortable job with the National Symphony to carve out what at first must have been a precarious existence for himself, teaching, performing, the occasional (and later much less occasional) speaking and writing gig. He was diagnosed with Leukemia at the end of 2019, and endured a bone marrow transplant and then a succession of horrors related to harsh reactions to the procedure, including Graft vs. Host Disease and an endless succession of opportunistic infections stemming from his immune system being suppressed so he could tolerate the transplant. In the end, it was more than he could survive. But he fought to the end, with inconceivable forbearance and endurance. When I was able to reach him by phone, he would still favor me with a Yiddish joke I hadn’t yet heard, impeccably delivered.
His greatest accomplishment, though, is his family. I have more admiration for his wife Susan than I can say, and they raised two marvelous and accomplished young women, their daughters Jillian and Eva.
That I will never have another conversation with Mike is a hideous void in my life.’