Adam Hopkins

“Adam Hopkins is one of the few talents with the vision to make jazz directed at the current and future generations, not the past ones.” —S. Victor Aaron, Something Else!

Adam Hopkins is a bassist, composer, educator, and semi-professional parallel parker born and raised in Baltimore MD, relocated to Brooklyn NY in 2011, and to Richmond VA in 2019, where he now lives. He has extensive experience performing jazz and improvised music and has played with professional orchestras in Maryland, Virginia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and the DC metro area. His debut album CRICKETS has received international acclaim from a variety of sources, most notably ranking as the #2 Debut Album in the 2018 NPR Jazz Critics Poll. Adam was also named the #2 Newcomer Musician for 2018 in the International Critics Poll organized by El Intruso.

Adam currently appears in a number of NYC-based ensembles both as a leader and sideman. As a sideman he has been involved with performances led by Henry Threadgill, as well as a European tour with John Hollenbeck’s Claudia Quintet. He performs regularly with the Webber/Morris Big Band, Tomeka Reid’s Stringtet, Laura Ann Singh's Fracas Quintet, Scott Clark's Dawn & Dusk, Anna Webber's Rectangles, Christopher Hoffman Trio, Ideal Bread, Laila & Smitty, BeepHonk (collective with Dave Ballou, Anthony Pirog, and Mike Kuhl), Kate Gentile Mannequins, among others. He has released albums of his own compositions with two NYC-based bands, Crickets and Party Pack Ice. His Richmond-based band School Work is dedicated to performing the compositions of the great avant-garde jazz composers of the 1960s, Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, Andrew Hill, Charles Mingus, etc. Adam has studied double bass with many great performers and teachers of the instrument, including Michael Formanek, Jeffrey Weisner, Jack Budrow, Rodney Whitaker, and Sam Cross and additional studies with Drew Gress and Gary Thomas.

In August of 2018 Adam launched Out Of Your Head Records, an artist-run Richmond/Brooklyn-based record label dedicated to creative music and original visual art in limited runs. He enlisted the help of two of his closest collaborators, TJ Huff and Nick Prevas, to shape the visual image of the label. On October 19, 2018 Adam released his debut album CRICKETS as the first release on the label.

In addition to being a performer he has extensive experience as a curator. In 2009 he co-founded an improvised music collective called the Out of Your Head Collective, which maintained weekly performances in Baltimore for 5+ years at The Windup Space. Upon moving to New York in 2011 he started a Brooklyn-based chapter which involved over 100 of the city's greatest improvisers. In 2023 he launched a music series in Richmond VA called OOYH Records Second Mondays, which takes place at Artspace and is co-curated with Scott Clark. Additionally he was a long-term co-curator for two Brooklyn-based weekly music series, A.E. Randolph Presents and 65Fen.

Adam held a faculty position at Loyola University for six years as a professor of double and electric bass, music theory, ear training, and jazz ensembles. He holds a graduate performance diploma from Peabody Conservatory in Jazz Studies, a master’s degree from Michigan State University in Orchestral Bass Performance, and a bachelor’s degree from James Madison University in Music Industry.