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Prof. Hopkinson Smith

Prof. Hopkinson Smith

Prof. Hopkinson Smith

Curriculum Vitae

Born in New York in 1946, Swiss-American lutenist Hopkinson Smith graduated from Harvard with Honors in Music in 1972. His instrumental studies took him to Europe where he worked with Emilio Pujol, a great pedagogue in the highest Catalan artistic tradition, and with the Swiss lutenist, Eugen Dombois, whose sense of organic unity between performer, instrument, and historical period has had lasting effects on him. He has been involved in numerous chamber music projects and was one of the founding members of the ensemble Hespèrion XX. Since the mid-80’s, he has focused almost exclusively on the solo repertoires for early plucked instrument, producing a series of prize-winning recordings for Astrée and Naïve, which feature Spanish music for vihuela and baroque guitar, French lute music of the Renaissance and baroque, English and Italian music of the 16th early 17th century and music from the German high baroque. His lute versions of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for violin and his Suites for the cello have opened up new channels of understanding of these works. 

Hopkinson Smith has performed and given master classes throughout Eastern and Western Europe, North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, Korea and Japan. He lives in Basel, Switzerland where after his emeritation at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis he now teaches in postgraduate studies at the Musikakademie Basel. - He loves to teach!