ABOUT

Michael Hofmann is an opera stage director, administrator, performer, and artist based in Hudson, New York.

His frequent experience with premiere works and devised performances has positioned him as a specialist in contemporary opera direction dedicated to genuine, engaging, and accessible storytelling. His directorial debut, a semi-staged performance of Bernstein’s Candide with The Orchestra Now in February 2017, was noted as “stunning in its brilliance, humor, and overall gestalt... an astonishing accomplishment” (Millbrook Independent). Hofmann has since directed or stage-managed performances at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Kaufman Music Center’s Special Music School, University of Connecticut, Fresh Squeezed Opera, the Bard Music Festival, and the Bard College Music Program, among others.

Most recently, he directed Hudson Hall’s November 2024 production of Anthony Knight’s No Cowards in Our Band, a musical drama based on the life of Frederick Douglass, and served as assistant director to R.B. Schlather for his spring 2025 production of Handel’s Giulio Cesare, also at Hudson Hall.

As a baritone, he has sung regularly with several New York-based choral ensembles and small opera companies, including The Choir of St. Luke in the Fields, Canticum Scholare, and Opera on Tap, and currently is a staff singer at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran in Poughkeepsie. Since fall 2024 he has been the music director and conductor of the Hudson Community Choir.

Previously the Mayoral Aide & ADA Coordinator for the City of Hudson, he now works as the Audience & Member Services Manager at the Fisher Center at Bard. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Hudson Festival Orchestra (President), Clarion Concerts (Treasurer), the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse Preservation Society (Treasurer), and Columbia Opportunities, Inc. He was an honoree in the inaugural Columbia County “40 Under 40” Awards in October 2022.

Hofmann holds a B.A. in music from Vassar College and an M.M. in voice from Bard College Conservatory.