George Stoffan is Assistant Professor of Clarinet at Oakland University. He also serves as Principal Clarinetist with the Pontiac-Oakland Symphony. Mr. Stoffan previously served on the faculty of Southern Utah University. He joined the United States Air Force Band in Washington D.C. in 1997 and served as that ensemble’s Concertmaster and Principal Clarinetist from 1998 until 2001.
He has appeared in chamber recitals at the Anderson House Museum in Washington D.C., the Lyceum Museum, Montgomery (MD) College, at George Mason University’s Harris Theater, and at the Scarab Club of Detroit. He has also performed with the National Philharmonic, Washington Cathedral Choral Society, National Gallery Chamber Orchestra, Washington D.C. Contemporary Music Forum, Fairfax (VA) Symphony, Annapolis (MD) Symphony, Green Bay Symphony, Madison (WI) Symphony, the Orchestra of Southern Utah, and performed with the Massachusetts Symphony on its March 2002 tour of Spain. He has recently performed with the Toledo Symphony, Ann Arbor Symphony, and Rochester (MI) Symphony.
Mr. Stoffan participated in the Kent/Blossom Chamber Music Festival during the summers of 1996 and 1997. He performed at conferences of the International Clarinet Association in 2004 at the University of Maryland, in 2006 in Atlanta, and in 2008 in Kansas City. He also made a presentation on clarinet pedagogy at the 2008 Michigan Music Educator’s Conference.
Mr. Stoffan’s recording, A Postcard from Europe, featuring contemporary East European clarinet music, in addition to the Brahms Sonata No. 2, Op. 120, in E-flat Major, was released in the fall of 2008. Detroit Free Press music critic Mark Stryker writes that these modern and contemporary voices from Eastern Europe “all benefit from Stoffan’s warm expression and confident attack.” He has served on the teaching faculties of the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, Washington Conservatory, the D.C. Youth Orchestra Program, George Mason University, the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, and Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp.
His research interests include contemporary Czech clarinet music. Mr. Stoffan’s dissertation, Revolutions and Revelations: the clarinet music of the Czech composer, Zbyněk Matějů, explores Czech musical life after the fall of communism. He presented excerpts from this research at the 2006 International Conference on the Arts and Humanities. Other research interests include Classic era performance practice. He delivered his paper entitled The Mozart Clarinet Concerto, in Text and Context at the 1998 International Clarinet Association Symposium, “Vienna and the Clarinet.”
While at the University of Wisconsin, Mr. Stoffan directed the clarinet choir and studied instrumental conducting with David Becker and James Smith. He received his Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Wisconsin, his Master of Music degree from Indiana University, and Bachelor of Music degree and Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from the University of Michigan. Mr. Stoffan’s teachers have included John Mohler, Howard Klug, Eli Eban, Linda Bartley, and Steve Barta.