Set for release on Decca Classics in August, the album features 12 works written over six decades, performed by Gustavo Dudamel and the Philharmonia Orchestra.
Anthony Hopkins will release a new orchestral album, Life Is a Dream, on August 21 via Decca Classics. The lead single, “1947: Suite for Solo Piano and Orchestra: II. Bracken Road,” is streaming now, offering a first listen to a project that chronicles decades of private composition.
Far from a late-career lark, the album gathers 12 recordings of pieces written across more than 60 years, drawing on Hopkins’s family, his Welsh roots, and a musical practice that began long before acting. He started piano at age four and composed for local plays as a teenager. “Music was my first desire, my first wish,” Hopkins said in a statement. “I’ve been composing music all my life. Some of these pieces have lived with me for decades and I still find myself returning to them.”
The album arrives with the weight of top-tier classical forces: conductor Gustavo Dudamel leads the Philharmonia Orchestra, with soloists including cellist Gregorio Nieto and pianist Sergio Tiempo. Hopkins has worked in this world before. He co-wrote works premiered by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in 2008, released the album Composer in 2012, and received a Classic Brit Award for his contribution to the André Rieu recording And the Waltz Goes On.
Life Is a Dream includes a new recording of “And The Waltz Goes On” alongside other previously unheard pieces. Pre-orders are ongoing.
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