Matilda Hofman has a varied and busy conducting schedule. Reviewers have described her conducting as “taut and finely controlled” and giving “a striking sense of purpose.” She is Music Director of the Diablo Symphony Orchestra, conductor-in-residence for the Empyrean Ensemble at UC Davis and Artistic Director of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble. Matilda also serves as a cover conductor for the San Francisco Symphony.

Guest engagements in California include Festival Opera, the Fremont Symphony Orchestra, Sierra Summer Festival, San Francisco Ballet, Sacramento Ballet, Earplay, and Stanford University. She has also worked at Sacramento Opera as assistant to Michael Morgan.

In Europe Matilda has performed at the Salzburg Festival, Berliner Festspiele, Holland Festival, Ruhrtriennale, Luzern Festival, Paris Autumn Festival, and at the Guggenheim in Bilbao. She has worked with Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Recherche, SWR Sinfonie-orchester, Bochumer Symphoniker and Kammerakdemie Potsdam and has performed alongside Maestro Ingo Metzmacher in several performances of Luigi Nono’s Prometeo. In 2018 she was on the faculty for the soundSCAPE new music festival in Italy. Matilda works with both instrumental and choral groups and prepared Chorwerk Ruhr for their tremendously successful debut with the Berlin Philharmonic in MusikFest Berlin, with George Benjamin conducting. 

Matilda is a committed educator. In the 2024-25 season Matilda will be conductor-in-residence at the University of the Pacific, and a guest conductor at the Eastman School of Music and for the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra. She serves on the faculty at UC Davis, where she has also directed the Early Music Ensemble, including performances of St. John’s Passion and Tomás Luis Victoria’s Requiem. In fall 2019 and 2021 Matilda was a resident artist at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, working and performing with the Contemporary Music Ensemble, Sinfonietta and the Opera. 

As Music Director of the Diablo Symphony Matilda initiated a strong and vibrant education program, which now includes music to schools in the Contra Costa area, family concerts and an instrument drive. As Artistic Director of Left Coast Chamber Ensemble she successfully implemented Pathways, a new program that gives opportunities to underrepresented emerging composers. Presenting a diversity of musical voices is a central part of her approach to making music.

Hofman holds degrees from Cambridge University, the Royal Academy of Music (Viola Performance), and the Eastman School of Music (Conducting), and has studied as a conducting fellow at the Aspen Music Festival and School. Her mentors include Ingo Metzmacher, Martyn Brabbins and Neil Varon. She studied viola with Garfield Jackson, Martin Outram, and Tatiana Masurenko. She has received awards from the League of American Orchestras and the Conductors Guild of America.

When Matilda is not making music she can be found hanging out with her kids or working as a Wilderness Ranger in the Trinity Alps.