Composer Christopher Hopkins specializes in electroacoustic music and dialectics among historical musical styles. His recent supporting research includes designs for experimental virtual composing environments, algorithmic musical logic based on historical models, and analysis of chord-color symmetries. Hopkins is also a performer of Renaissance and Baroque music for viols.
While at MacDowell, Hopkins produced new scholarly editions of 29 Contrapunti (Firenze, 1584) by Vincenzo Galilei, in transcriptions for all combinations of violas da gamba. This was the first phase of a larger project "Galilei Dialogues," which includes composing a new, contemporary musical composition for consort of viols based on Galilei's musical style and the music-philosophical ideas of Renaissance Humanism. The project received additional support from the Viola da Gamba Society of America, and the Center for Excellence in the Arts and Humanities at Iowa State University.
