Bill Hopkins (composer)

Bill Hopkins (5 June 1943 – 10 March 1981) was a British composer. He also published music criticism, mostly under the name G. W. Hopkins.
Biography.
Hopkins was born in Prestbury, Cheshire, and educated at Hillcrest Grammar School and Rossall School, Lancashire; his mother's disability meant she was unable to look after him, and he was raised by aunts. Studies with Luigi Nono at Dartington Summer School consolidated his interest in serialism; subsequently he studied at Oxford University with Edmund Rubbra and Egon Wellesz.
In 1964 he went to Paris, ostensibly to study with Olivier Messiaen but with the prime objective of meeting and studying with Jean Barraqué. Returning to England, he supported himself as a music critic in London and then, after moving first to Tintagel, Cornwall and subsequently to Peel, Isle of Man, by translation and writing music criticism. He married Clare Gilbert in 1972. Subsequently, he taught at Birmingham University and University of Newcastle upon Tyne before succumbing to a heart attack, in Chopwell, near Newcastle, at the age of 37. His few pupils included the British composers Paul Keenan and Patrick Ozzard-Low.
He was upset at an under-rehearsed first performance of "En attendant" in 1977 and this possibly discouraged him from composition for a while. He was working on an opera project, tentatively called "Nes" and later "Play on Music", but little if any of this was completed.
Career.
Hopkins' music is published by Universal Edition, Schott, and Ricordi. It has been performed by Irvine Arditti, David Atherton, Alexander Balanescu, Richard Bernas, Nicolas Hodges, Geoffrey Douglas Madge, Jane Manning, Holly Mathieson, Donatienne Michel-Dansac, Christopher Rowland, Sarah Maria Sun, Ilan Volkov and Alison Wells, as well as Ensemble Recherche, London Sinfonietta, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Music Projects/London, Christchurch Symphony Orchestra and the WDR Symphony Orchestra.
Works.
This listing is of Hopkins' completed and acknowledged works. For further information about other works, see Paul Griffiths' provisional catalogue.
The Bill Hopkins Collection at the Paul Sacher Foundation, Basel, holds Hopkins' manuscripts.
Recordings.
His complete piano works have been recorded by Nicolas Hodges, (col legno, 2000). "En Attendant", "Two Pomes", "Pendant" and "Sensation" have been recorded by Music Projects/London and Richard Bernas, (NMC, 1992).
A new complete recording of his acknowledged works is in preparation.