Barbara A. Hopkins

Award winning flutist Barbara Hopkins performs and teaches 300 years of music on Baroque flute, simple system 19th century flutes, and modern flute. She has served as the HSO’s Assistant Principal flute for 25 years, and is also a long time member of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic, which is based in her hometown of Scranton, PA. She teaches students of all ages and coordinates the Adult Chamber Music Program at The Hartt School, University of Hartford. At Sacred Heart University, she teaches music minors and Band Scholarship Program students.

Barbara serves as chair of the National Flute Association’s Historical Flutes Committee and has authored articles on historical flute topics for The Flutist Quarterly and Traverso Historical Flute Newsletter. 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 founded The Rosewood Chamber Ensemble with guitarist Judy Handler, which specializes in concerts of early music performed on period instruments. 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 CD, Songs and Dances of Early America, was funded by a grant from the University of Connecticut and well-reviewed in Flute Talk Magazine. They have performed throughout New England, and in Boston, New York, Washington DC, and Pennsylvania.

She has released three solo CDs including Telemann Methodical Sonatas, Vol. 1, and 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.” The Flute Network praised her Telemann recording as, “full, rich, and highly musical.” She has appeared as soloist in New York, Boston, Albuquerque, Seattle, Phoenix, Atlanta, Dallas, Washington, Orlando, Alaska, Connecticut, and throughout her home state of Pennsylvania. She was first prize winner in the National Flute Association Orchestral Audition Competition, has been a top prize winner in the New York Flute Club Young Artist Competition, and was awarded a fellowship to Tanglewood Music Center, where she had the honor of playing principal flute under Leonard Bernstein..

Dr. Hopkins received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Stony Brook University, 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.