Magdalena Hoffmann

Magdalena Hoffmann serves as principal harpist of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra while maintaining an active career as soloist and chamber musician whose programs focus on broadening the harp’s available literature. Following an exclusive recording agreement with the Deutsche Grammophon label in 2021, she released her first album for the company, Nightscapes for Harp, the next year.

Born in Basel, Switzerland, in 1990, Hoffmann began harp studies at age six. In 2007 she moved to Düsseldorf, Germany, to work with Fabiana Trani, continuing with the same teacher after graduating from the Robert Schumann Musikhochschule. She then spent a year at the Royal Academy of Music in London under Skaila Kanga before completing postgraduate work with Cristina Bianchi at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich. Private lessons and master classes with harpists such as Fabrice Pierre, Isabelle Moretti, and Alice Giles further shaped her training.

The year 2014 proved pivotal when she presented her theatrical concert piece Odyssey on 47 strings at the Swiss Harp Masters Festival and joined the Tyrolean Symphony Orchestra in Austria as principal harpist. The following year she began teaching at the Tyrol State Conservatory. Chamber collaborations have linked her with flutists Karl-Heinz Schütz and Andrea Lieberknecht as well as violinist Aleksey Igudesman, for whose children’s album Funny Animals she supplied both drawings and text. After reaching the semifinals of the ARD International Music Competition in 2016, she received two special prizes.

Hoffmann stepped down from the Tyrolean Symphony in 2018 upon her appointment as principal harpist of the Bavarian Radio Symphony, the same year her debut album Footnotes appeared on the Izhcailuma Records label. She also acts as cultural ambassador for Colombia’s Casa Hogar organization, which furnishes housing and schooling for girls in the troubled Chocó region.