![Hoffman, Monte (copy)](https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/buffalonews.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/e/54/e54e5c72-2eab-11ef-9a03-873ccc6f30a7/665bfd78411ca.image.jpg?resize=150%2C218 150w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/buffalonews.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/e/54/e54e5c72-2eab-11ef-9a03-873ccc6f30a7/665bfd78411ca.image.jpg?resize=200%2C291 200w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/buffalonews.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/e/54/e54e5c72-2eab-11ef-9a03-873ccc6f30a7/665bfd78411ca.image.jpg?resize=225%2C327 225w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/buffalonews.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/e/54/e54e5c72-2eab-11ef-9a03-873ccc6f30a7/665bfd78411ca.image.jpg?resize=300%2C437 300w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/buffalonews.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/e/54/e54e5c72-2eab-11ef-9a03-873ccc6f30a7/665bfd78411ca.image.jpg?resize=400%2C582 400w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/buffalonews.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/e/54/e54e5c72-2eab-11ef-9a03-873ccc6f30a7/665bfd78411ca.image.jpg?resize=540%2C786 540w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/buffalonews.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/e/54/e54e5c72-2eab-11ef-9a03-873ccc6f30a7/665bfd78411ca.image.jpg?resize=600%2C873 640w)
Monte Hoffman became enthralled with the cello in his parents’ living room. He was 6 years old and the cello was part of the Curtis String Quartet, some of the famous musicians his parents regularly hosted in their home.
“I planted myself on the floor in front of the cello when they played,” he told the Buffalo Jewish Journal in 2019.
A mainstay of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, where he was cellist for 55 years, he died May 25 under hospice care in Buffalo General Medical Center after a short period of declining health. He was 82.
“He leaves behind a legacy of his passion for music, his love of the community and his extraordinary generosity,” the orchestra’s music director Joann Falletta wrote following his death. “Monte was a shining ambassador for the Philharmonic who lit up our stage with his larger-than-life personality.”
Born Monte Kursheedt Hoffman in Atlantic City, N.J., one of twin boys, his ancestors included Gershom Mendes Seixas, the rabbi who was one of the clergymen invited to President George Washington’s first inauguration.
His father, Nathan Hoffman, was a prominent lawyer, real estate developer and a municipal court judge in Ventnor, N.J. His mother, Abigail Kursheedt Hoffman, attended Eastman School of Music in Rochester, founded the Ventnor Summer Music Festival and was professor of electronic music at Jersey City State College.
After he began cello lessons, the Curtis String Quartet’s Orlando Cole was one of his teachers. He studied chamber music at the prestigious Meadowmount School of Music summer program in Westport, near Lake Champlain, from 1955 to 1960. He considered one of his teachers there, Leonard Rose, principal cellist with the New York Philharmonic, to be his greatest inspiration.
While in high school, he played in pit orchestras for the Miss America pageants in Atlantic City and in nightclubs with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr.
He graduated with a performance degree in cello in 1960 from the Eastman School of Music, then spent four years with the Eastman Philharmonia. He took part in a 14-week tour in 1961 sponsored by the U.S. State Department that played more than 50 concerts in 16 countries, including the Soviet Union.
BPO music director Lukas Foss brought him to Buffalo in 1964 after they first met at an audition in a New York City hotel room. The two became lifelong friends.
“Probably of all the musicians in the Buffalo Philharmonic, Monte was the one closest to Lukas and the one Lukas loved the best,” Falletta said as she introduced Mr. Hoffman during a video conversation in 2022 prior to the orchestra’s performance in Carnegie Hall to celebrate Foss’ 100th birthday.
During his years with the orchestra, Mr. Hoffman was cordial with all the music directors. He served on the board of directors, where he was a member of the finance and endowment committees, and was part of the musicians’ contact negotiation team.
He also played for four years with the Casals Festival Orchestra in the 1980s. His final performance with the BPO was in a Led Zeppelin pops concert in January 2019.
Following his retirement, Gail Bauser wrote in the Buffalo Jewish Journal that Mr. Hoffman “was always easy to recognize from the audience, sitting tall and stately in the cello section, the stage lights reflecting brightly off his full head of white hair.”
An avid collector of art and antiques and a real estate investor, he was a longtime member of the Buffalo Tennis and Squash Club and played on many softball teams.
When he married BPO flutist Cheryl Feyrer Gobbetti in 1996, the ceremony in Kleinhans Music Hall was attended by more than 500, including pops conductor Mitch Miller, a regular guest in his home, and Lukas Foss, who created a composition entitled “Peace” in their honor.
Survivors include two daughters, Alicia Michielli, a bookseller, and Mara Hoffman, a fashion designer; a son, Jonathan, a small-business owner; a sister, Jane Paress; his partner of 15 years, Niscah Koessler; and five grandchildren.
His wife, Cheryl, died in 2008. His twin brother, George, who died in November 2023, was a stockbroker in Akron, Ohio, and former owner of a professional soccer team, the Cleveland Crunch.
A memorial celebration was held June 30 in the Mary Seaton Room at Kleinhans Music Hall.