Left Coast Chamber Ensemble Staff

Artistic Director

Matilda Hofman has a varied and busy conducting schedule in California and Europe. In Europe she has performed at the Salzburg Festival, Berliner Festspiele, Holland Festival, Ruhrtriennale, Luzern Festival, Paris Autumn Festival, and at the Guggenheim in Bilbao. Matilda has worked with Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Recherche, SWR Sinfonie-orchester, Bochumer Symponiker and Kammerakdemie Potsdam. She has performed alongside Maestro Ingo Metzmacher in many 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. 

Reviews have described Matilda’s conducting as “taut and finely controlled” (San Francisco Gate), and as giving “a striking sense of purpose” (San Francisco Classical Voice). In California Hofman is Music Director of the Diablo Symphony Orchestra, as well as conductor in residence for Empyrean Ensemble at UC Davis. She has premiered many works, including several operas. Matilda also serves as a cover conductor for the San Francisco Symphony.

Passionate about chamber music as community and friendship, and as the basis of all music-making, Matilda has been making music with Left Coast Chamber Ensemble since 2010, performed as a member of the ensemble since 2019, and served on the leadership team since 2022. She has premiered many works with Left Coast, including several operas. Matilda is artistic director of the San Francisco-based ensemble as of the 2023-24 season.

Guest engagements in California include Festival Opera, the Fremont Symphony Orchestra, Sierra Summer Festival, San Francisco Ballet, Sacramento Ballet and Earplay. She has also worked at Sacramento Opera, and assisted Michael Morgan on several operas including Pagliacci, Gianni Schicchi and Il Trovatore. Operas conducted in staged performances include Così fan tutte, Le Nozze di Figaro, Turn of the Screw, Albert Herring, Carmen, Bluebeard's Castle, Der Kaiser von Atlantis, Acis and Galatea as well as new works.

Hofman serves on the faculty at UC Davis, and has also served as director of the Early Music Ensemble. During her tenure with EME she performed a highly successful St. John’s Passion, an ambitious undertaking for the group. In the 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.

Matilda is very committed to education and outreach. As Music Director of the Diablo Symphony she initiated an education program which includes music to schools in the Contra Costa area as well as family concerts and an instrument drive.

Hofman holds degrees from Cambridge University, the Royal Academy of Music (Viola Performance), and the Eastman School of Music (Conducting), and has served 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.

matilda@leftcoastensemble.org

Managing Director

Emily Thomas joined Left Coast Chamber Ensemble in 2023 as Production Manager and began serving as Managing Director in 2024. She is responsible for directing all aspects of the organization’s operations and administration, including development, concert and event management, and communications. Born in southern California, Emily graduated from UC Davis in 2023 with degrees in Music Composition and English and has since moved to San Francisco. She has a background in arts administration, copy editing and publishing, and production management. Emily is grateful for the community she has discovered through Left Coast Chamber Ensemble and is passionate about inviting all to share in that community in her role as Managing Director.

emily@leftcoastensemble.org

Grants Manager

Susan Thieme

susan@leftcoastensemble.org

Bookkeeper

Heli Roiha

senseitoo@gmail.com