Profile
Professor Hopkin’s distinguished career spans 60 years and includes
orchestral, administrative and academic positions in Australia, New
Zealand and the UK. In the 1950s he became the youngest person to
conduct a major British orchestra and in the 1960s he was Federal
Director of Music for the ABC.
Other career highlights include being the founding Dean of Music at
the Victorian College of the Arts, followed by six years as Director
of the New South Wales State Conservatorium. His recordings include
numerous Australian works as well as six albums devoted to Percy
Grainger.
Professor Hopkins has conducted the Melbourne and Sydney Symphony
Orchestras on overseas tours and orchestras in Belgium, Holland,
Sweden, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, the USSR,
Canada, the USA, South Africa and Japan.
Professor Hopkins is currently Head of Conducting and an Honorary
Professorial Fellow in the Faculty of Music at the University of
Melbourne.
Professor John Hopkins, OBE,
was awarded an honorary Doctorate from the University of Melbourne on
20th August 2007
