Toshitaka Hoppo was born in Osaka, Japan in 1968, and moved to Pittsburgh, PA in 2005. He started playing the violin at the age of 6, and has learned with Otoshige Takase, Yuji Togi, Kiyoko Yoshinaga and Chiharu Kano. He served as a concertmaster of the Symphony Youth Orchestra and the Kyoto prefectural university orchestra. He won at the Takatsuki music competition in 1997 and was invited to play Chaconne from Partita No.2 by J.S.Bach at the winner’s recital. As a soloist, he was invited to play Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto in D major, Op.35 with the Kyoto prefectural university orchestra in 1998, and Mozart’s violin concerto No. 3 in G major, K.216 with the Eufonica symphony orchestra in 2002. He won first place at the American Protégé International Concerto Competition by playing Shostakovich’s violin concerto No.1 in A minor, Op.77 in 2017, and had the opportunity to play at the Carnegie Hall, NYC. Most recently, he won the Pittsburgh Concert Society Major Artist Audition with his daughter, Sora (pianist), in 2019.
He graduated from Kyoto Prefectural University School of Medicine to earn M.D. in 1994, and graduated from Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine to earn Ph.D. in 2005. He is a Japan board certified general surgeon. After he moved to Pittsburgh in 2005, he completed the clinical fellowship of minimally invasive general thoracic surgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Currently, he works as a foregut (esophageal) surgeon at the Esophageal & Lung Institute, Allegheny Health Network, Pittsburgh PA.
