Cellist and conductor Patrick Hopkins is an active soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player having performed nationally and internationally in venues such as Alice Tully Hall, David Geffen Hall, Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Merkin Hall, The New World Center, and Suntory Hall. He made his Lincoln Center debut in 2008 as soloist with the Juilliard Pre-College Orchestra and has appeared three times as soloist with the Fairbanks Symphony. In July 2015, he was soloist/principal cellist with the National Repertory Orchestra and recently appeared as soloist with the New Amsterdam Orchestra of New York. In 2011, Dr. Hopkins was the Grand Prize winner of the Music Teachers National Association Young Artist Competition. He was the recipient of the 2010 Young Alaskan Artist Award which led to his Anchorage recital debut. Dr. Hopkins is also a Yamaha Young Performing Artist. He was a member of the Wichita (Kansas) Symphony Orchestra, served as a lecturer at Rutgers University, and was a faculty member at South Texas College, where he taught cello, bass, chamber music, and conducted string ensembles.

Dr. Hopkins has appeared as a member of The Juilliard Orchestra and the New World Symphony, and has served as principal cellist of the Aspen Opera Theater Company Orchestra, The Juilliard Orchestra, the Manhattan School of Music Symphony Orchestra, and the Rutgers Symphony Orchestra. He has worked with conductors such as Alan Gilbert, Bernard Haitink, Robert Spano, and Yannick Nezet-Seguin.

A versatile chamber musician as well as an experienced soloist and orchestral leader, Dr. Hopkins is performing across the United States with the New York-based chamber ensemble Frisson. He has studied chamber music with members of the American, Cleveland, Emerson, Juilliard, and Orion Quartets as well as Toby Appel, Joseph Kalichstein, Seymour Lipkin, and Sylvia Rosenberg. Dr. Hopkins has performed in master classes with Zuill Bailey, Colin Carr, Timothy Eddy, Pamela Frank, and Franz Helmerson, and has performed with members of the Harlem and Orion Quartets.  

Dr. Hopkins began cello studies at age four in Fairbanks, Alaska, and is a graduate of Juilliard’s Pre-College Division. He received his Bachelor of Music degree from The Juilliard School as a scholarship student of Bonnie Hampton and Richard Aaron, his Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music in the Orchestral Performance program as a full scholarship student of Alan Stepansky, and his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Rutgers University as a full scholarship student of Jonathan Spitz. Other teachers with whom he has worked extensively include Amy Barston, Hans Jørgen-Jensen, Melissa Kraut, and Minna Rose Chung. He attended the Meadowmount School of Music and received summer fellowships from the National Repertory Orchestra, Spoleto Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, and the Music Academy of the West. Dr. Hopkins currently serves as Assistant Professor of Cello and Bass at Southeast Missouri State University and Artistic Director and Conductor of the Southeast Missouri Symphony Orchestra.