Sofia Hoffmann
Sofia Hofmann is a Portuguese-German artist, based in Lisbon, Portugal. Sofia started her music education with the study and performance of the classic / acoustic guitar during 4 years with Walter Lopes. Her vocal training was initiated by the lyric singer and vocal teacher Maria do Rosário Coelho.
Together with her highschool band, Sofia started to write her own songs and to share them on stage in Lisbon and in the Algarve during her 20s. Later on in Milan, Sofia took a master in jazz with the jazz singer Laura Fedele, continuing her studies back in Lisbon with the Portuguese jazz singer Maria João. In that same moment, Sofia met the pianist and composer Nuno Tavares, with whom she worked on a jazz standards repertoire, performing it mostly in Portugal.
In 2014, Sofia met her Indian classical music and meditation Teacher, the late Acharya Roop Verma (disciple of Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan, and also a Yoga Master), who deeply inspired her and impacted her development as a musician and as a person.
After her guru’s passing, Sofia wrote original songs which were presented to the public during the 4 concerts she produced during the years of 2017 and 2018 in Lisbon.
These original songs were part of her first album, ONE SOUL, which Sofia produced and performed together with some of the best jazz musicians in Portugal,and which was released in June 2019, landing on the 14th position in the national album releases ranking. Her single “EASY” continues to be streamed by the radio Smooth FM.
After meeting one of her teachers, the Indian classical musician Gaurav Mazumdar (disciple of the late Pandit Ravi Shankar), Sofia developed not only her sitar skills but progressed as well within the Indian classical vocal style. Sofia also studies sitar with the international sitarist Arjun Verma, her guru’s son and disciple of Ali Akbar Khan.
During the pandemic lockdown situation, Sofia wrote the song ESPERAREI – inspired in the melancholy of all those who couldn’t see and be with their loved ones, and finalizing her message with an appeal for hope and trust in the future.
This theme was Sofia’s first experience with the conductor, arranger, producer and musician John Beasley, who not only produced it with her from a distance, but also arranged this song and played several instruments. ESPERAREI directed the approach to her future album, joining the 2 styles jazz and Indian classical music in Portugal, and somehow, also gathering the east with the west through the Music element.
Sofia performs with her band mostly in Portugal and collaborates within several music projects in Portugal and abroad, namely as a soloist at the Lisbon Swingers Orchestra.