Musical recognition: Bourges [FR] International Electroacoustic Residency Prize, Prix Ars [AT] Electronica Mention, Pierre Schaeffer [FR] Mention, MacDowell Foundation Residency Award, NEA Award, Seattle Arts Commission Artist Awards, two Jerome Foundation commissions, two University Research Challenge Fund (NYU) awards, ICMA [International Computer Music Association] 2000 commission for Berlin ICMC premiere, Sonic Circuits commission; and a 2024 Discovery Grant recipient, OPERA America (Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation).
Teaching appointments prior to NYU FAS: University of Washington, Seattle; and University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Golden Dozen Excellence in Teaching Award Receipient (NYU) (2000).
Compositional interests include micro-timbre, texture, tuning, and, spatialization. My first sound installation opened in September 2019; titled RETU(R)NINGS, it sounds daily for 1 – 2 minutes in the Bobst Library Atrium precisely at sunset. The media I work in are acoustic, electro-acoustic, and computer music.
Collaborations with Marilyn Nonken, Margaret Lancaster, Ivan Goff, String Noise, GlassFarm Ensemble, Marianne Gythfeldt, Sarah Plum, Abbie Conant, Jane Rigler, Andy Kozar, Azalea Twining, and others.
Current 2025-26 projects include new works for gamin, HYPERCUBE, and an electroacoustic work based on Bengali, Indian, Swahili, and Arabic songs, in dialogue with fieldwork by Andrew Eisenberg.
Published theoretical work on electroacoustic and avant-garde musics addresses the significance of often indirectly perceived qualities in musics; point of view in abstract and representational electronic musics; spatialization as interpretive practice and ontologically; ethics of digital humanities’ archival practices; and musical embodiment and personal formalization in composition. Articles appear in The Computer Music Journal, Organized Sound, Array, and Perspectives of New Music.
My published music appears on empreintes DIGITALes, NEUMA, Centaur, World-Edition, Capstone, Innova, Everglade, and New Focus labels. I teach in the Arts and Science Department of Music at NYU. Computer and electroacoustic music studies with Bülent Arel, Diane Thome, Richard Karpen, and John Rahn. Composition study with Gerry Levinson at Swarthmore.
I am active as a pianist, as well.
contact: elizabeth.hoffman@nyu.edu
Professor, NYU Music FAS
Co-director, Music FAS Sound Studios and Labs
24 Waverly Place, #268
NY, NY 10003
