Artistic Director
Ruth Hopkins
Ruth Hopkins’ reputation as an Artistic Director and advocate for the importance of live music making is rooted in her work with K’antu Ensemble.
Ruth read music at Somerville College, Oxford, and won the Dame Felicity Lott Bursary at Royal Holloway for her postgraduate Vocal Studies. During the pandemic, she has returned to Merton College, Oxford, to undertake postgraduate studies to support her work with K’antu Ensemble sponsored by the SBS Alumni Scholarship.
Active as a solo soprano, recent performances include St Martin-in-the-Fields, Beethoven Society of Europe’s Tippet Festival, Opera Ridotta, and a residency at the Banff Centre (Canada). She also enjoys collaborating with composers and has premiered works by Kerry Andrew, Phillip Venables, George Holloway and Robert Szymanek. Victoria Bernath is currently writing a new song cycle for her, inspired by the research of Dr Rosemary Golding.
In 2011, Ruth formed K’antu Ensemble to combine her interests in composition and early music to create inventive and lively new arrangements of historical music to attract the next generation of Early Music lovers. She is passionate about making live music accessible for all and her approach to programming makes K’antu Ensemble’s music equally appealing on the concert platform, at a folk festival, or in a school.
Since winning the Live Music Now Fellowship to undertake specialist training in working with children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), she has developed an extensive education and outreach programme for K’antu Ensemble. She has spoken at conferences about her work in SEND settings and provides training for musicians and school staff through Live Music Now and the Amber Trust.
She is currently working with the National Trust to redevelop the outreach programme at The Firs (Elgar’s Birthplace Museum), providing training to SEND school staff in Bangaldesh through the British Council/CHILD Foundation (Bangladesh) and Artistic Director for a three year outreach programme culminating in performances as part of the Commonwealth Games Festival.
Ruth is a regular contributor to the South West Music School’s residential programme for advanced music students, she mentors graduates on the Live Music Now Young Artists Scheme and leads workshop and lectures for the junior department at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
St Martin-in-the-Fields Lute Song Recital.
K’antu Ensemble at St Phillip’s Cathedral Birmingham