Curtis on Tour: Debussy, Ravel, and Fauré

Gary Hoffman performs alongside Curtis students and alumni

Internationally renowned cellist Gary Hoffman, the Nina and Billy Albert Chair in Cello Studies at Curtis joins some of the school’s esteemed alumni for a tour of Europe in the spring of 2025. A thrilling concert of iconic works and audience favorites, the program features one of Claude Debussy’s final compositions, the Sonata in D minor for Cello and Piano, an elegant, evocative work, at once dark, mysterious, meditative, and playfully whimsical.

Maurice Ravel’s shimmering Piano Trio in A minor follows, a dreamlike work with echoes of jazz, Javanese gamelan, and courtly Baroque dances, all leading to a splashy finale. The concert closes with Gabriel Fauré’s deeply moving Piano Quartet No. 1 in C minor, Op. 15, widely regarded as one of the most significant and celebrated French chamber music works of the late 19th century.