GARY HOFFMAN

Gary Hoffman has been working in the music business professionally since 1980 when, at age 15, he began playing steadily with local salsa and R&B bands in his home town of New Orleans. In the daylight hours, he pursued his bachelor degree first at University of New Orleans and then at Loyola University. He is a trumpet student of Clyde Kerr, Tony Klatka (Blood, Sweat and Tears, Woody Herman), Marvin Stamm (Leading session player with thousands of credits) and Mike Bucalo (New Orleans Philharmonic). In the last 25 years, he has worked with well known artists from the Pop world such as Ray Charles, The O'Jays, The Platters, The Shirelles, The Fifth Dimension, Little Anthony, Flo and Eddie (The Turtles), Mary Wilson (The Supremes), Tiny Barge and the Big Chill, The Village People and Julio Iglesias. As a Jazz trumpetist, he has performed in concert with Eddie Daniels, Ernie Watts, Big Band Nor (featuring Tim Hagans), Bill Watrous, Harry Connick, Jr., Tony Dagradi, Tony Klatka, Al Belleto, Allan Vizzuti, The Louis Armstrong Tribute Big Band (featuring Charlie Miller, Wendell Brunious and Jamil Shariff), Mark Mullins, Clarence Johnson, Hallgeir Pettersen, Rebekka Bachen, Petter Wettre, Erik Smith, Frode Berg, Olga Konkova, Dag Arnesen, Ivar Antonson, Lars Erik Drevatn, Nottoden Blues Band and Sverre Joner, as well as fronting his own groups.

He has appeared as a session musician on jingles for CocaCola, ReMax, United Airlines and Advil. He has composed/arranged for TV (Ditka Live, Morgus the Magnificent), Busch Gardens, Carnival Cruise Lines and Rikskonsertene (Norwegian Concert Society).

Gary Hoffman's recording career began in the late '70's when the first cassette multitrack machines came on the market. He was basically self-taught, reading all the available books on recording at that time and asking numerous questions to the engineers on the many sessions on which he played. In 1995, while obtaining his Masters in Music degree, he worked at The Boiler Room, one of New Orleans premier studios, with the owner, Mark Bingham, a gifted engineer from the "Old School", ie., the choice of mics and their placement over "fixing it in the mix". He worked on numerous sessions including Jon Cleary, Herlin Riley and many others. He also worked as a volunteer at WWOZ jazz radio, recording live at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Fesitival while simultaniously webcasting to over I million listeners. After moving to Oslo, Norway, he worked at Oslo Lydstudio as a freelance producer.

In 2001 he moved to Nesna, Norway and started a family.  Since then he has worked as associate professor of music at Nesna University College teaching music technology, improvisation, arranging, ensemble and jazz/pop music history. In 2003, he started Arctic Circle Recording Studio using a hybrid of both High Definition digital recording technology and traditional analog based techniques.