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Biography
Irwin Hoffman (born November 26, 1924) is an American conductor, born in New York.
Hoffman studied at the Juilliard School and was a protégé of Serge Koussevitsky, and he made his conducting debut at the age of seventeen with the Philadelphia Orchestra at Robin Hood Dell (now the Mann Center for the Performing Arts). He was music director of the Vancouver Symphony from 1952 to 1964, and served the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as assistant conductor (1964-65), associate conductor (1965-68), acting music director (1968-69), and conductor (1969-70).
Hoffman became the first music director of the Florida Orchestra (then the Florida Gulf Coast Symphony) in 1968. He was music director of the Bogotá Philharmonic, Colombia for one year, and the Chile Symphony Orchestra for three seasons (from 1995 to 1997).