The Academy Award-winning actor – also a talented pianist – unveils major new recording project comprising over six decades of original compositions.
Decca Classics has announced the exclusive signing of Sir Anthony Hopkins as a composer. The Academy Award-winning actor will release his first recording with the label next month, bringing together a selection of orchestral works written across more than six decades.
After a lifetime of composing, Hopkins shares his most personal musical project to date, entitled Life is a Dream. Performed by Grammy Award-winning conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the Philharmonia Orchestra, the album presents new recordings of original works inspired by Hopkins’ family, Wales and a lifetime of experience.
Known around the world as one of the most celebrated actors of his generation, Hopkins has maintained a parallel creative life as a composer since childhood. Long before acting became his profession, music was his first passion. Born in Port Talbot, Wales, he began playing the piano at the age of four and was performing Beethoven and Chopin just a few years later. He started improvising as young as six years old, and was composing music for local plays as a teenager in the 1950s.
"Music was my first desire, my first wish," says Hopkins. "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."
Hopkins with conductor Gustavo Dudamel (© Charlie Gray):
The new recording project features works written across different periods of Hopkins' life, revealing a composer whose music shares the same emotional depth and storytelling that define his screen career. Here is an intimate musical memoir shaped by loved-ones, imagination, and heritage. Several pieces draw directly on his Welsh upbringing and the landscapes of his boyhood, while others reflect important people and experiences that have accompanied him over the years.
The first piece of music to be released is 'Bracken Road' – the second movement from Hopkins' 1947: Suite for Solo Piano and Orchestra. Inspired by childhood memories of Margam, South Wales, it is a nostalgic musical portrait of the streets, meadows, farmland and mountains that surrounded his family home in the 1940s.
Originally conceived as a song while Hopkins was a young actor at the Liverpool Playhouse in 1963, the melody emerged during quiet mornings improvising at an upright piano backstage
before rehearsals. Its blues-inflected character reflects the influence of the Harry James Orchestra and Jackie Gleason's lush orchestral ballads, while the orchestration pays tribute to the slow movement of Elgar's First Symphony, with soaring strings, muted trumpet, clarinet and solo piano creating a warm, reflective soundscape.
There is a further tribute to Wales in My Fatherland – a piece to, as he puts it, “honour my humble beginnings. I am the son of my father, the baker.” It is inspired by traditional Welsh melodies and his enduring connection to the country of his birth. Other compositions on the album draw on memories of Port Talbot, childhood visits with his grandfather, the cinema that first caught his imagination and the people closest to him: Stella Aria for his beloved wife, and Tara for his niece.
Sir Anthony Hopkins says of the signing, “My whole life is a dream. Signing with Decca is the honour of a lifetime. It has been a true privilege to collaborate with the distinguished Philharmonia Orchestra, and the captivating soloists Gregorio Nieto and 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.”
‘LIFE IS A DREAM’ IS RELEASED 21ST AUGUST 2026 ON DECCA CLASSICS
Main image: © Charlie Gray