Award winning flutist Barbara Hopkins enjoys national recognition for her performances. She has released three educational CDs including Telemann Methodical Sonatas Vol. 1, Short Concert Pieces for Flute and Piano, and Andersen Etudes, opus 15. Flute Talk magazine recommends her Andersen CD, writing, “Hopkins plays these virtuoso etudes with taste and a technical ease that many students work for years to never achieve,” and The Flute Network praised her Telemann recording as, “full, rich, and highly musical.” It was while teaching at Hartt Community Division that she conceived the idea for her first CD, Short Concert Pieces for Flute and Piano, when she realized her students needed to hear the repertoire that she was teaching and that much of it had never been recorded.She has appeared as soloist in New York, Boston, Albuquerque, Seattle, Phoenix, Atlanta, Dallas, Alaska, Florida, Connecticut, and throughout her home state of Pennsylvania. Composer Edward Diemente has written several works for her, and she has also worked with Joan Tower, Kenneth Fuchs, Chinary Ung, and Shirish Korde.

A cousin of nineteenth century Connecticut flute maker Asa Hopkins, Barbara is very involved with early flutes and music. She has acquired several flutes by Asa Hopkins, and has had them restored to playing condition. She is a member The Rosewood Chamber Ensemble with guitarist Judy Handler, which specializes in performances of early music performed on Baroque, Classical, and Early American flutes with guitar. The Greater Boston Flute Association Gazette wrote of their Boston concert, “The pieces were played with style and joy, resulting in a captivating performance.” Their first CD, Songs and Dances of Early America, will be released this summer.

Barbara has been a top prize winner in the New York Flute Club Young Artist Competition, was first prize winner in the National Flute Association Orchestral Audition Competition, and was awarded a fellowship to Tanglewood Music Center, where she had the honor of playing principal flute under Leonard Bernstein. She has been a member of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra since 1993, and has also performed with the Minnesota Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, and Sarasota Orchestra.

Dr. Hopkins teaches flute at The Hartt School Community Division. It was while teaching at The Hartt School that she conceived the idea for her first CD, Short Concert Pieces for Flute and Piano, when she realized her students needed to hear the repertoire that she was teaching and that much of it had never been recorded.

Dr. Hopkins received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where she studied with Samuel Baron. She earned her Master of Music from The Mannes College of Music under Thomas Nyfenger, and her Bachelor of Music at The Hartt School with John Wion. Always seeking to refine her skills, she has also studied piccolo with Geralyn Coticone of the Boston Symphony, new music with Robert Dick, and Baroque flute with Na’ama Lion.

Boxwood flute by Asa Hopkins
photo: Jerry Schurr