Kelsea Hopkins: poem, for double bass and piano

About the Composition

I wrote this piece for myself at the end of my undergraduate degree in double bass performance and composition at the University of Ottawa, where I studied double bass with Travis Harrison. The idea for this piece was to combine the lyrical and powerful sides of double bass playing.

Throughout my studies, I often felt like there were notes and passages from various repertoire I really liked on my bass, so the language is largely influenced by that and by the sounds of the octave and fifth harmonics on the double bass tuned in fourths. The result is something between extended tonality, romanticism, and some rock’n’roll.

About the Composer

Kelsea Hopkins is a Canadian-Filipino composer and double bassist currently based in Toronto. Her work is predominantly lyrical, using the double bass as inspiration for most choices of musical language. She is a recipient of a 2023 SOCAN Young Canadian Composer Award and an Ann Atkinson Award from the University of Toronto.

While studying composition at the graduate level, she is an active performer with the University of Toronto Symphony Orchestra, The Faculty of Engineering Symphony Orchestra, and the Friends of Music Chinese Orchestra. She also records and performs as an improviser occasionally.

Photo credit: Curtis Perry