Pianist Benjamin Hochman is achieving widespread acclaim for his performances as an orchestral soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. Though only in his mid-twenties, he is an imaginatively mature artist with an innate ability to combine beauty of line within the overall shape of a piece. The Washington Post praised his "flowing artistry" in a recital at the National Gallery of Art and The Cincinnati Post wrote that he "shone in his Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra debut" and had "a crystal clear tone and articulation to match" performing Mozart's Piano Concerto, K. 271 under Jaime Laredo in April 2006. After hearing Benjamin Hochman at the Marlboro Festival, pianist Mitsuko Uchida recommended him to conductor Zubin Mehta, resulting in his first orchestral engagement with the Israel Philharmonic two seasons ago and an immediate re-engagement with the orchestra for his Carnegie Hall debut. Pinchas Zukerman has additionally invited him to perform and tour with the Zukerman ChamberPlayers.

Benjamin Hochman's 2006-2007 season began with sold-out performances at the New York Philharmonic's Summertime Classics, where he played Saint-Saëns's spirited Carnival of the Animals. The renowned Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival featured him in three concerts, including an all-Bach recital, a chamber arrangement of Mozart's Piano Concerto, K. 449 with the Miami Quartet, and a performance of Bartók's Contrasts. The Santa Fe Reporter wrote of his Bach recital, "His clarity, pacing and calm assurance set the tone for the entire recital. Hochman played with taste and maturity." He joins the Zukerman ChamberPlayers for Dvo?ák's Piano Quintet at the Kennedy Center's Fortas Chamber Music Concerts, the 92nd Street Y, Ottawa's National Gallery, the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, North Carolina, Calgary, Barcelona, Copenhagen, and the Tuscan Sun Festival in Cortona, Italy. A passionate chamber musician, Benjamin Hochman continues his relationship with Lincoln Center's prestigious "Chamber Music Society Two" program. Additionally, he has participated in chamber music projects at the 92nd Street Y and the Vancouver Recital Society, performed Dvo?ák's Piano Quintet with the Zukerman ChamberPlayers at the McCarter Theater in Princeton and toured with the Jerusalem String Quartet throughout the northeastern United States.

In the fall of 2006 Mr. Hochman will give his New York solo recital debut at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with a program of Bach, Berg, and Schubert. He also appears at the Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival in Virginia, Greenwich Connecticut Library's Concert Series, and in Philadelphia. He collaborates in a special project with pianist Jonathan Biss in piano music for four hands by Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Debussy, and Bartók's dramatic Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion; they perform this repertoire at the 92nd Street Y, Orono, Maine, and Purchase, New York. In the winter Mr. Hochman performs Bernstein's Symphony No.2 Age of Anxiety with the American Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leon Botstein. He tours his native Israel in the spring with a series of concerts and a lecture/recital on Olivier Messiaen at the Rubin Academy in Jerusalem.

Benjamin Hochman's 2005-2006 season included many important orchestral debuts and re-engagements, as well as recital and chamber music projects. He performed Beethoven's First Piano Concerto in his Seattle Symphony debut (described by The Seattle Times as "remarkably poetic") with conductor Jun Märkl and joined conductor Pinchas Zukerman and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a Mozart Piano Concerto project with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. He made his Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra debut under Jaime Laredo and also appeared with him at the Vermont Symphony. In May 2006 he was re-engaged by the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa for an all-Mozart program led by Pinchas Zukerman. He also gave recitals at the Klavier-Festival Ruhr (Germany), Israel's Voice of Music Series, and the Brattleboro Music Center in Vermont, among others.

Benjamin Hochman has performed at the Marlboro, Ravinia, Santa Fe, Spoleto/Italy, Lucerne, Verbier, Bravo! Vail, Eastern Shore (Maryland), and Vancouver festivals, and the International Chamber Music Encounters under the direction of the late Isaac Stern in Jerusalem. He has collaborated in chamber music performances with members of the Guarneri, Orion, Mendelssohn, Prazak, and Daedalus Quartets and with Jaime Laredo, Sharon Robinson, Cho-Liang Lin, Ani Kavafian, and Ralph Kirshbaum. In recent seasons he has played recitals at Vancouver's Recital Society, the 'Rising Star' series at both Ravinia and the Gilmore Keyboard Festival, Santa Fe's "Artist Circle" series, New York's Town Hall, Italy's Spoleto Festival, and the Louvre.

The pianist's honors include the "Outstanding Pianist" citation at the Verbier Academy, the Festorazzi Award given by the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music, second prize at the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition, the "Partosh Prize" awarded by the Israeli Minister of Culture for best performance of an Israeli work, and first prize at the National Piano Competition of the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem. His performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio's Young Artist Showcase and Performance Today, CBC (Canada), ABC (Australia), Radio France, and Israel's Voice of Music radio station, as well as on the European television network, Mezzo.

Born in Jerusalem in 1980, Benjamin Hochman graduated from the High School and Conservatory of the Rubin Academy of Music and studied with Esther Narkiss and Emanuel Krasovsky before arriving in the United States. A student of Claude Frank and Richard Goode, he is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and the Mannes College of Music in New York. Mr. Hochman gratefully acknowledges the support of the America Israel Cultural Foundation (1992-2004).