“Hopkins is a true improviser. He goes beyond slick licks and pursues musical ideas, pushing into areas of pure noise and shape in his search for exciting, direct communication.”  
– The Age 

“A player and composer with an innate talent for melody and structure”
– The Sydney Morning Herald

New Zealand based saxophonist and composer Tim Hopkins has had a diverse career playing music, from recording to touring to teaching throughout Australia as well as NZ. 

Growing up in Brisbane, Australia, Hopkins was headed for a career in graphic arts before the jazz bug bit. He took up the saxophone at age 15 and hit the ground running, 3 years later graduating from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and gigging around town. Since then he has performed regularly with Australian jazz musicians Vince Jones, Paul Grabowsky, The Australia Art Orchestra, and was a regular member of the Mike Nock quartet for 14 years. In NZ he has performed with Kim Patterson, Kevin Field, Frank Gibson Jnr, Nathan Haines, Roger Fox, King Kapisi. Other credits in Australia include Ed Kuepper, Doug Williams, Midnight Oil, Jackie Orszaczky and many others.

His debut album as leader in 1993 Good Heavens coincided with winning the National Jazz Saxophone Award at the Wangaratta Festival of Jazz in Australia. By the end of the 1990s he had recorded another four albums as leader, and toured South East Asia, Canada with Mike Nock.

In 1999, while studying in NYC, he wrote, arranged and performed with an ensemble called Phydia featuring a string quartet with a standard jazz quartet line up.

In 2000, Hopkins moved back to New Zealand and began recording and compiling his 6th album Hear Now After. The first single Loophole features TV presenter Russell Harrison on vocals, rapper King Kapisi, percussionist Miguel Fuentes and Hopkins on an assortment of instruments. Loophole was included on a NZ On Air compilation disc and features a black and white video directed by the NZ Independent Film Company.

Hopkins started the Heineken Green Room Sessions in New Zealand with DJ Clarke and The Gordon Bennett Project, a “live music with DJ” project. GBP have since played at the Heineken Open, headlined in Malaysia and Singapore at several big events and released a double CD recorded at Millton Vineyards & Winery in Gisborne.

Hear Now After, his 6th album, was released in March 2008, features many of the musicians listed above and other players from New Zealand and Australia, including appearances by his father, drummer Tony Hopkins, Mike Nock, Max Stowers, Dixon Nacey, Aaron Coddel, Jonathan Zwartz and Sean Wayland.

In 2012 he graduated with distinction a Masters in Performance at NZSM in Wellington, the music of which formed the basis for his 7th albumSeven as leader and was nominated for a Tui Award in the Jazz Album of the Year category.

Tim is currently working on his 8th album Cosmic Caving, a solo project featuring music he recorded in the Jenolan Caves in Australia, a mix of improvised and composed music by Hopkins on tenor and soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, South American wooden flute and other instruments. The album also features renowned percussionist Miguel Feuntes on a number of tracks.

Always looking for fresh and interesting ways to present his love of jazz, Hopkins continues to grow and move into new and diverse ways of presenting creative music.