Pembroke Observer • 2021
Petawawa native wins first JUNO Award

Baritone Joshua Hopkins, who grew up in Petawawa, has won the JUNO Award for Classical Album of the Year: Vocal or Choral for his recording of Massenet: Thaïs. Sharing the impressive honour with Hopkins are the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and conductor Sir Andrew Davis, Erin Wall, Andrew Staples, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and Nathan Berg who were all part of the winning recording.

“I am deeply honoured to receive my first JUNO Award for Thaïs, a project that took a giant leap of faith in my operatic singing career,” Hopkins said. “I share this honour with all of the brilliant musicians who performed so gloriously on the stage of Roy Thomson Hall in November 2019, when this live recording was captured over two nights. I also share this accolade with my incredible wife Zoe, who as an inspirational partner and muse, never fails to unearth my full artistic potential.”

The award for Best Classical Album: Vocal or Choral, along with 14 other categories, were presented during the 50th JUNO Opening Night Awards on June 4, 2021, live online on CBC Music.

The TSO recording of Massenet’s emotionally riveting opera Thaïs was released in May 2020 on the prestigious Chandos label. Conducted by Toronto Symphony Orchestra Conductor Laureate Sir Andrew Davis, and featuring a cast of renowned Canadian and international singers, with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, Massenet: Thaïs was recorded live by Soundmirror, Inc. at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto in November 2019.

In August of 2020, Tim Ashley wrote in his review of the recording for Gramophone, “…there’s a real surge of emotion at the climax of the Act 2 duet with Joshua Hopkins’s outstanding Athanaël. His is a remarkable, unforgettable performance, sung with consistently expressive beauty, and quite superbly characterised, with every second of Athanaël’s progress from prurient fanaticism to desire, atheism and despair registering with quite astonishing vividness. Hopkins . . . makes the new recording more than well worth hearing….”

Hopkins said the role of Athanaël is the longest and most challenging role he has ever performed and that he owed his thanks to Erin Wall, the soprano who sang the title role, and who encouraged him to go for it.

Sadly, Wall passed away at age 44 last October from cancer.

“I was privileged to perform opposite Erin in three different operas in 2019. Thaïs was the last time I sang with Erin — the last time I saw her — and she SOARED above the stage in that role, with glorious singing and full dramatic commitment. I was heartbroken that Erin could not be with us last weekend to share in this joyful win. I know she would have been so thrilled to receive her first JUNO; it is a tribute to the memory of her extraordinary artistry,” Hopkins said.

According to a press release issued by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO), the recording received high praise from critics worldwide, who singled out the cast and the Orchestra under Sir Andrew Davis. CBC Music called it a “thrilling concert performance.”

“On behalf of the TSO, I am delighted to thank the JUNO Awards for this honour, and offer a big congratulations to the exceptional TSO musicians and extraordinary soloists — the late Erin Wall, Joshua Hopkins, Andrew Staples and Nathan Berg, the wonderful Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, and to conductor Sir Andrew Davis for Massenet: Thaïs,” said Gustavo Gimeno, TSO music director. “The recognition is especially meaningful because this opera-in-concert was recorded only a few months before the world’s concert stages were silenced. I am grateful to the entire company as well as our recording partner, Chandos Records, and sound engineers, Soundmirror, Inc. for capturing this concert so beautifully.”