Bill Hopkins (composer)

George William Hopkins (5 June 1943 – 10 March 1981), known as Bill Hopkins, 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 in order to study with Olivier Messiaen, and with an ambition to meet 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. Career Hopkins’ music is published