Helen Hopekirk

Helen Hopekirk (20 May 1856 – 19 November 1945) was a Scottish pianist and composer who after the age of 40 lived and worked in Boston, Massachusetts.

[1] She studied music with George Lichtenstein and Scottish composer Alexander Mackenzie, and made her debut as a soloist in 1874 with the Edinburgh Amateur Orchestral Society.

[2] In 1882 Hopekirk married Edinburgh merchant and music critic William A. Wilson (d. 1926), who began serving as her manager.

[4] Her husband was injured in a traffic accident, and in 1897 she accepted the invitation of Director George Chadwick to take a teaching position at the New England Conservatory.

Hopekirk gave the first American performances of the Concertstück with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Wilhelm Gericke on 15–16 April 1904, after which it remained unperformed until 2015.