‘Exceptional’.
‘Ms. Hocking is a sensitive artist, who painted a picture of serene beauty in her playing… It was enchanting.’
-New York Concert Review
Short Bio
Hailing from Qathet, Canada, Madeline Hocking is a violinist, violist, composer, and artistic director committed to giving contemporary music the attention and passion it deserves. Her work centers on deeply collaborative and experimental approaches to creation - through chamber music, working with composers on world premieres of repertoire, and interdisciplinary performances that intertwine new music with visual art and dance. Madeline is a member of NYC based contemporary ensembles including Sixth Degree, Composer Performer (COPE) Collective, Infrasound, and New Chamber Ballet, and she co-hosts an interactive concert series with Trevor New as a performer and administrator at En.J.Inn Arts. Recent roles have also included co-founding and co-artistic directing the award-winning collective ‘Noise Catalogue’, and playing as a member of Semiosis Quartet in Boston. As a violin soloist, Madeline has appeared with ensembles including American Composers Orchestra, San Francisco Conservatory Orchestra, Vancouver Philharmonic, Strathcona Symphony Orchestra, and Comox Music Centre Orchestra, as well as at IRCAM Forum and on the New York Philharmonic’s Nightcap series. Madeline has premiered countless new works for solo and chamber music at venues including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, National Sawdust, the Banff Centre, and music festivals across North America and Europe. As a composer, her works have been performed at venues across the US, Canada, and Hungary. Madeline received her Bachelor's degree from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and a Master's degree in contemporary violin from Manhattan School of Music.
Long Bio
Originally from Qathet, Canada, Madeline Hocking is emerging as a dynamic performer, composer and artistic director based in New York City. A fierce advocate for new music, she maintains an active freelance career on the east coast of the US, collaborating with composers and artists throughout North America on a variety of projects, including giving world premieres of solo violin works, creating interdisciplinary concerts with artists from other disciplines, and more. She is drawn to the collaborative, experimental process of working closely with living composers on their music, and is committed to highlighting new voices and perspectives in the realm of contemporary art. From 2023-2025, she co-founded and co-artistic directed Noise Catalogue, which won the Ursula Mamlok Prize in 2023 for significant contribution to the performance of contemporary music, grant funding from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and a residency at So Percussion Studio in Brooklyn.
Known for her warm, singing tone and the unique marriage of different styles reflected in her playing, Madeline has been the recipient of widespread acclaim as a soloist. She performed her New York Philharmonic debut in 2023 on the ‘Nightcap’ concert series, has been a violin soloist with the New Chamber Ballet since 2024 premiering numerous new works per year at Mark Morris Dance Group, as well as appearing with American Composers Orchestra, the San Francisco Conservatory Orchestra, the Vancouver Philharmonic, the Strathcona Symphony Orchestra and the Comox Music Centre Orchestra. She has also performed a solo for the New York City Canadian Consulate, and for Queen Margrethe II of Denmark in a performance with the Royal Danish Academy of Music Orchestra. Throughout her career, Madeline has premiered new works for chamber and solo at venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Centre, David Geffen Hall, National Sawdust, Chan Centre, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, the Canadian National Arts Center, San Francisco Center for New Music, the Banff Centre, the Chan Center, MIT, and Koerner Hall at the Royal Conservatory of Music, in addition to music festivals throughout the world. Some music festival highlights include the American Composers Orchestra’s SONiC Festival, Music By the Sea (Canada), The Next Festival of Emerging Artists, the Banff Centre Evolution: Classical Festival, Hungary Live Festival, the Orford Arts Centre Violin Masterclasses, Bang on a Can Summer Festival, Banff Centre Masterclasses for Strings and Winds, 1:2:1, Zodiac Festival, National Youth Orchestra of Canada, and the Pacific Regional International Summer Music Academy.
As a collaborator and artistic director, Madeline loves any opportunity to delve into interdisciplinary projects, recognizing how artists in various mediums can enhance each other’s work by combining their different perspectives and modes of expression. Recent examples have included working with a creative team including Philip Glass, Tara Hugo, and Alex Gray to bring to life the East Coat premiere of “Infinity” (a concert-length experimental theater piece scored by Glass), as well as giving the world premiere performances of works by composers Elizabeth Gartman, Ya Lan Chan, and Christian Frederic Bloquert, in performances alongside dancers of New Chamber Ballet. She was also the member of the first musical group to present augmented-reality art at the New York Philharmonic (performing alongside chromic duo and Brian Ellis) in 2023. With her collective Noise Catalogue, she has undertaken numerous interdisciplinary projects, including an interactive installation at Bard College based on Italo Calvino’s ‘Invisible Cities’, and designing a multi-media concert performance with artist Knox Peters, featuring numerous original compositions, live painting, spoken word, and projections. Madeline has collaborated and performed with choreographers Miro Magloire, Mark Morris, Jordyn Ryder, Mark Bankin, Saki Kawamura, and Sam Fairbrother, and with Brooklyn Motion Capture Dance Ensemble. She has recorded the soundtracks for numerous short films in Los Angeles and New York City, and alongside Semiosis Quartet, worked with actor/director Michael Shannon on recording the soundtrack for ‘Eric Larue’, Shannon’s directorial debut film which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Electronics and technology have become an increasingly prominent element of Madeline’s work, stemming from a passion to enhance concerts’ capacity for audience interaction in novel ways. Recent examples have included performing a solo work for violin and electronics at the IRCAM forum, and since 2022, co-hosting an ongoing series of interactive concerts with violist Trevor New, ‘Telematic Collisions’, wherein audience members attending both virtually and in-person can directly affect elements of the musical performance in real time. In 2022-2023, she performed with this cutting-edge technology (developed by En.j.inn Arts) as a virtual soloist with the American Composers Orchestra (ACO) at the Dimenna Center numerous times in the Earshot ColLABoratory Series. She also performed in the 2023 SONiC Festival at Tishman Auditorium alongside Trevor New, Dorothy Chan, and others, with the ACO.
Madeline also ‘has talent as a composer’ (New York Concert Review), with works being performed throughout the US, Canada, and Hungary. In 2026, she is being featured on a Composers Now concert series moderated by Tania Leon, to present her work for violin and electronics. Her works are borne from extensive musical collaboration with other artists, resulting in pieces which are highly personalized and tailored to other musicians’ specific personalities and strengths; for example she has written personalized works for guitarist Joseph Ehrenpreis, violist Trevor New, and for ensembles Sixth Degree, COPE Collective, and Noise Catalogue. Since 2020, she has co-composed numerous short film soundtracks alongside composer-performers including Anuj Bhutani and chromic duo. In recent years, she has also performed the world premieres of original duos for violin and percussion co-written with Dániel Matei, at venues including the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, the Kiscelli Museum of Budapest, Manhattan School of Music, and Bard Conservatory.
In the beginning of her musical studies, other genres of music were of equal importance to classical music or even at the forefront of her focus, and she finds that her strong background in other genres contributes greatly to her versatility as a contemporary music performer. A lifelong fiddle player, she was a member of the Celtic/trad band ‘Ceilish’, which performed at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games Torch Relay, and toured Scotland the previous year. She also worked with jazz pianist Walter Martella from a young age, collaborated with Vancouver based producers to write and record violin and piano tracks for local artists’ pop and country albums in her high school years, performed and recorded with Canadian bluegrass bands ‘The Rakish Angles’ and ‘The Empty Streets’, has appeared on albums with jazz saxophone legends Phil Dwyer, Ryan Oliver and Cory Weeds, and more recently, has worked with Hungarian fiddle legend István Pál in Budapest. In 2026, she will perform an evening-length concert directed by Anuj Bhutani at National Sawdust which will span several genres including metal, singer-songwriter, ambient, and Indian classical, with the violin parts co-written with him.
Madeline holds a Master of Music degree in contemporary violin from Manhattan School of Music, and a Bachelor of Music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and has had the privilege to study with Curt Macomber, Wei He, Ian Swensen, Eszter Haffner, Nicholas Wright, Mary Sokol-Brown, and Cathy Reckenberg.
@AnnAnn Puttithanasorn
For more behind the scenes content & concert photos, follow Madeline and her ensembles on Instagram:
@anastasia.the.pumpkin
@noisecatalogue
@semiosisquartet
@enjinnarts