Oscar-winning actor Anthony Hopkins is not slowing down any time soon.
The prolific stage and screen star, 88, has revealed he’ll be releasing his debut album next month and dropped the first single, “Bracken Road,” on Friday.
Hopkins, famed for performances in The Silence of the Lambs and more recently, The Father, explained that he has been composing the collection of classical music over six decades. He has signed with Decca Classics, who are releasing the album, titled Life Is a Dream, on Aug. 21. The songs are performed byGustavo Dudamelwith the PhilharmoniaOrchestra.
The first single is inspired by Hopkins’ childhood memories of Margam in South Wales, as well as “the streets, meadows, farmland, and mountains around his family home in the 1940s,” according to Decca. Another, “My Fatherland,” is inspired by traditional Welsh melodies, and compositions inspired by cinema, his wife, and his niece.
Hopkins describes music as “my first desire, my first wish… 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. My whole life is a dream. Signing with Decca is the honor of a lifetime.”
His label said the actor has played piano since the age of four and started performing Beethoven and Chopin just a few years later. As a teenager, Hopkins would compose music for local plays. Indeed, this is not his first time in the music limelight. In 2012, the self-taught composer won a Classic Brit Award for album of the year, after composing the title waltz for And the Waltz Goes On, recorded by violinist André Rieu.
“Signing with Decca is the honor of a lifetime,” continued Hopkins. “It has been a true privilege to collaborate with the distinguished Philharmonia Orchestra and the virtuoso soloists, cellist Gregorio Nieto and classical pianist Sergio Tiempo. My deepest gratitude and respect go to Maestro Gustavo Dudamel, whose artistry is an integral part of this musical journey. With the graceful precision of his baton, he transformed each note with profound and indelible meaning, creating a pictorial landscape that invites the listener to feel and imagine something uniquely personal.”
Dudamel added that Hopkins is a “rare artist.” He said: “[His] creative voice transcends any single medium. The same depth of imagination, humanity, and emotional truth that has defined his extraordinary work on stage and screen is present in his music. Listening to his composition, I am struck by its beauty, craftsmanship, and the unmistakable sense of wonder that animates it… Anthony approaches music with the heart of a storyteller and the instincts of a poet, creating sound worlds that are both deeply personal and universally resonant.”