Tim Hopkins

Tim Hopkins, (born in Auckland, New Zealand) is an Australian jazz musician.

Growing up in Brisbane, Australia, Tim was heading for a career in graphic arts when he picked up the saxophone on a whim at age 15. Something clicked and just a few years later he graduated from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and was coming to the attention of Australian jazz icons Vince Jones, Paul Grabowsky, Mike Nock, James Morrison, Don Burrows, top kiwi musicians Kim Patterson, Kevin Field, Frank Gibson Jnr, Nathan Haines, Mark de Clive Lowe, Andy Browne, Roger Fox, King Kapisi and Gray Bartlett. Other credits include You Am I, Kate Ceberano, Ed Kuepper, Doug Williams, Midnight Oil, Jackie Orszaczky, and many others, not to mention a brief jam with Sting.

Tim has also developed his skills as a composer and band leader, his debut in 1993 Good Heavens coincided with winning the National Jazz Award at the Wangaratta Festival of Jazz in Australia. By the end of the 1990s he had recorded another four CDs, toured South East Asia, Canada and Europe and performed at Jazz Festivals from Montreal to Melbourne, Waiheke to Wellington.

In 1999, on an Australia Arts Council grant, he packed up his horn and headed to jazz mecca New York City where he studied with saxophonist George Garzone. Whilst there, he played with Jim Black and Seamus Blake and wrote/arranged/performed with an adventurous ensemble called Phydia featuring a string quartet with a standard jazz quartet line up. It was from the creative intensity of NYC that ideas for a new album began to grow.

Tim recently returned to Sydney where he is performing/producing music, and designing websites.