POTSDAM – Ahead of an upcoming recording residency, SUNY Potsdam's Crane School of Music welcomed the acclaimed bass-baritone Justin Hopkins for a special visit to Dr. Jeanne-Minette Cilliers' "Art of Collaboration" class on Tuesday, Oct. 27. 

Hopkins presented a mini-recital, followed by a working session with Crane students to explore the creative partnership between a singer and a pianist.

An American bass-baritone recognized for performances with leading opera companies and orchestras, Hopkins has portrayed roles ranging from Sarastro at Opera North to Antron McCray in Anthony Davis's The Central Park Five at Detroit Opera. He has appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Boston Pops and is a prizewinner of the prestigious Lotte Lenya Competition.

The visit was part of Cilliers' and Hopkins' ongoing "Songs of Comfort" project with Kudu Productions to record 24 songs by Florence Price and Margaret Bonds, the first multi-artist reference recording of their vocal works across four voices (Raehann Bryce-Davis, Will Liverman, John Holiday and Justin Hopkins). They previously recorded Bonds's "When the Dove Enters In."

Watch: "When the Dove Enters In"

Price and Bonds wrote some of the most beautiful songs in the American repertoire, and for decades too few people heard them. Price was the first Black woman to have a symphony performed by a major American orchestra. Bonds was her student and close friend, and set the poetry of Langston Hughes and the great spirituals with a voice entirely her own.

"Songs of Comfort" brings their music to the incredible concert halls of The Crane School of Music, is recorded for commercial release and is conceived for becoming a one act musical revue, about the relationships of Price, Bonds and Hughes and the "influencers" of their time they had to endure.

"Songs of Comfort" began during the pandemic, when concert halls went dark. Cilliers and Hopkins recorded Price and Bonds songs for a series of films, sharing them online when live music couldn't be shared any other way. What began as comfort in isolation became the seed of a commercial recording, with some of the finest singers of our time. Cilliers is an assistant professor of vocal coaching/accompanying at The Crane School of Music, where she co-directs the Crane Opera Ensemble.

Learn more: Vocal performance at The Crane School of Music