About Subtilior Music Engraving (Nicholas Hopkins, Director)
Nicholas Hopkins was born in a small rural town in southern Rhode Island, to parents with no musical background and little musical interests. His childhood was engaged in relatively uneventful activities in the bucolic New England environment, until, by happenstance, a gift of an upright Chickering piano was presented to him. Though occurring at relatively late time in his life, Hopkins devoted himself earnestly to piano studies, practicing at times ten to twelve hours a day to compensate for his belated start. He decided immediately to devote his career to music, specifically piano performance and music theory, with a special emphasis on performance practices in twentieth- century piano music.
He engaged in undergraduate studies at the University of Rhode Island and the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. His interests were piqued by an electronic music studio at the conservatory, for which reason he decided to pursue studies in digital sound synthesis just across the Charles River at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Having happily earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in music, he spent a few untroubled, carefree years at The Royal Conservatory in The Hague, the Netherlands, after which time he settled comfortably, yet with sudden serious intent into a doctoral program at Stanford University. At this prestigious university he began his professional career in music engraving by learning (at first, unwillingly) Leland Smith’s program Score. In time, after enduring many exasperating experiences with the intricacies of music engraving, he decided to devote his career to music publishing.
Having completed doctoral work and a brief stint in ivy-league-university education, he relocated to Florence, Italy to serve as musical assistant to his erstwhile childhood hero Luciano Berio. While employed by Berio, he was engaged by the publishing firms Universal Edition of Vienna and Ricordi of Milan to engrave Berio’s orchestral and opera scores for publication. Having eventually met the inexorable demands of European music publishing, he has attributed these years as one of the most well-grounded learning experiences of his life.
Upon returning from Italy, armed with confidence and experience, he was hired as Managing Editor of Carl Fischer Music, with the task of overseeing all aspects of production. At Carl Fischer, he has produced hundreds of titles and has expressed special pride in Glenn Gould’s Goldberg Variations, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Practical Manual of Harmony, Elliott Carter’s Harmony Book and a performance edition of Anton Webern’s Fünf Schubert Lieder. He continues his activities in performance by acting as a director of music and choral singing at an Episcopal church and finds time, amidst the hustle and bustle of directing a church program, to provide freelance engraving services for a number of composers and publishing companies.
About Manuscript Submissions
I am at ease working with any form of submission, be it handwritten manuscript or digital files prepared in Score, Finale or Sibelius. Final production is generally provided in Sibelius format. Please feel free to contact me for any additional information.
About Pricing
In the days of yore, engraving prices were relatively easy to estimate, since they were based on a composer's handwritten manuscript. Now, with most submissions made with digital files, this can be somewhat more complicated. In general, handwritten submissions are calculated on the basis of a page rate, which in itself is based on the complexity of the music and the amount of information on the page. Clean-up of digital files, conversely, is based on an hourly rate, calculated from the amount of time needed to format the files into publication-ready form.
I can gladly provide an estimate for any project. Please contact me for more information about pricing.
Nicholas Hopkins was born in a small rural town in southern Rhode Island, to parents with no musical background and little musical interests. His childhood was engaged in relatively uneventful activities in the bucolic New England environment, until, by happenstance, a gift of an upright Chickering piano was presented to him. Though occurring at relatively late time in his life, Hopkins devoted himself earnestly to piano studies, practicing at times ten to twelve hours a day to compensate for his belated start. He decided immediately to devote his career to music, specifically piano performance and music theory, with a special emphasis on performance practices in twentieth- century piano music.
He engaged in undergraduate studies at the University of Rhode Island and the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. His interests were piqued by an electronic music studio at the conservatory, for which reason he decided to pursue studies in digital sound synthesis just across the Charles River at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Having happily earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in music, he spent a few untroubled, carefree years at The Royal Conservatory in The Hague, the Netherlands, after which time he settled comfortably, yet with sudden serious intent into a doctoral program at Stanford University. At this prestigious university he began his professional career in music engraving by learning (at first, unwillingly) Leland Smith’s program Score. In time, after enduring many exasperating experiences with the intricacies of music engraving, he decided to devote his career to music publishing.
Having completed doctoral work and a brief stint in ivy-league-university education, he relocated to Florence, Italy to serve as musical assistant to his erstwhile childhood hero Luciano Berio. While employed by Berio, he was engaged by the publishing firms Universal Edition of Vienna and Ricordi of Milan to engrave Berio’s orchestral and opera scores for publication. Having eventually met the inexorable demands of European music publishing, he has attributed these years as one of the most well-grounded learning experiences of his life.
Upon returning from Italy, armed with confidence and experience, he was hired as Managing Editor of Carl Fischer Music, with the task of overseeing all aspects of production. At Carl Fischer, he has produced hundreds of titles and has expressed special pride in Glenn Gould’s Goldberg Variations, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Practical Manual of Harmony, Elliott Carter’s Harmony Book and a performance edition of Anton Webern’s Fünf Schubert Lieder. He continues his activities in performance by acting as a director of music and choral singing at an Episcopal church and finds time, amidst the hustle and bustle of directing a church program, to provide freelance engraving services for a number of composers and publishing companies.
About Manuscript Submissions
I am at ease working with any form of submission, be it handwritten manuscript or digital files prepared in Score, Finale or Sibelius. Final production is generally provided in Sibelius format. Please feel free to contact me for any additional information.
About Pricing
In the days of yore, engraving prices were relatively easy to estimate, since they were based on a composer's handwritten manuscript. Now, with most submissions made with digital files, this can be somewhat more complicated. In general, handwritten submissions are calculated on the basis of a page rate, which in itself is based on the complexity of the music and the amount of information on the page. Clean-up of digital files, conversely, is based on an hourly rate, calculated from the amount of time needed to format the files into publication-ready form.
I can gladly provide an estimate for any project. Please contact me for more information about pricing.