Larry Hopkins was always part of a musical family. Starting his musical education on the violin at age 4 (taught by dear old dad), he soon progressed to play in several local orchestras enjoying a wide range of classical repertoire. At 12, Larry switched musical directions and began to learn the bassoon and the piano. About this time his musical influences turned to a great wealth of Jazz, Rock and Pop music.  His early teen years would turn his interest to the analog synthesizer. Larry's love of synthesizers was immediate and would soon change his future in ways he could not imagine. Now 15 years old, Larry was invited to perform at the Fete de Genève" (World Cultural Festival at Geneva, Switzerland). Immediately following these European performances, Larry would attend Saddleback College in Southern California. Saddleback College was known as one of the few schools in California (at this time) to have a full program in learning all about electronic music. Larry became the main intern at Saddleback tutoring other students in synthesis techniques. Larry quickly became an expert on Moog, Arp, Oberhiem, Emu and other synthesizers of the time. At this same time, Larry also began to study with the well-known jazz pianist, Wally Ruth (who was a pianist and saxophonist for Judy Garland at MGM). This led to Larry playing many local jazz clubs and concert performances in the California area. Larry would also study with Don Dorsey. That year Don was the recording engineer on several Stevie Wonder albums and also writing/recording the music for Disneyland's "Main Street Electrical Parade". Larry soon landed work in Las Vegas as musical director at both the Tropicana and Show Boat casinos. At this time, Larry would study with Ernest Hughes ( a Juilliard trained pianist who himself studied with the composer Mario Castelnuovo Tedesco. Mr. Hughes also gained fame as pianist for the Tommy Dorsey big band and as a pianist in Hollywood for Victor Young).

Larry soon moved to Boston to attend Berklee College of Music on a scholarship. Larry soon became absorbed into the Berklee lifestyle and studied with instructors such as Gary Burton (then, dean of music), Herb Pomeroy (known for giving the hardest class at Berklee - Line Writing) and Robert Winter (known for his stride piano as well as being the pianist for John Williams and the Boston Pops). Larry graduated from Berklee (Magna Cum Laude - GPA3.91) and decided to attend graduate classes in electronic music at Boston's New England Conservatory of Music. After graduating from NEC, Larry returned to California and soon found out his synthesizer knowledge would serve him well as he began to be known as one of the recording industry's top synthesizer/sampler programmers. This led him to work with many well known composers. Larry won several awards for his sound design and began to attract the attention of companies that manufacture synthesizers and samplers. Kurzweil Music Systems was the state of the art synthesizer company at the time and offered Larry the opportunity to join the KMS team. During his tenure at Kurzweil, he became responsible for the Kurzweil artist program. His duties included working with many composers and recording artists who all used Kurzweil instruments. In reality, Larry would also work for these people as an independent contractor as well. This led Larry to work in the studio with such artists as the Rolling Stones, Ray Charles, Alf Clausen (on the "Simpsons"), John Williams, Harry Connick Jr., Stevie Wonder, Brooks & Dunn, Kenny Rodgers, Cirque Du Soleil, Al Jarreau, BoyzIIMen, Loggins & Messina, to name just a few. Larry also became known as a top arranger for many composers at Universal and Warner Bros. working on many television and film scores.

About this same time, one of Larry's best friends from Universal Studios (Robb Navrides) became the sound supervisor on ABC's "Desperate Housewives". Robb asked Larry to compose music for the pilot episode. Executives at ABC loved the pilot episode and decided to pump a large budget into the show. Larry still continues to provide music for Desperate Housewives TV show. Soon after, Larry got a call from SONY's video game divisions and was soon composing music for SONY's "Jak & Daxter” video game series in which he scored music for Jak & Daxter 2, Jak 3 and Jak X.

After this, Larry got the opportunity to work with director Steven Spielberg and composer John Williams designing sounds for the feature film “Minority Report”. Soon after, Larry joined the post-production team at Technicolor Audio. While there Larry worked on many feature films (such as 2012, Angels & Demons, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Star Wars III, Ratatouille, Cars, Pirates of the Caribbean 2 & 3, The Simpsons Movie) and Television Shows (such as Grey’s Anatomy, Lost, Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, Greek, Young and the Restless, Hanna Montana, My Friend’s Tigger & Pooh, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Handy Manny, Ghost Whisperer and Criminal Minds). While still working for Technicolor, Larry got the opportunity to work with sound designer Alan Howarth and composer James Horner designing synthesizer sounds for Paramount's feature film “The Spiderwick Chronicles”.  He then scored the pilot episodes for "Saving Grace and "The Reaper".

His next big sound design project involved working with the Esa-Pekka Salonen (composer and conductor for the Los Angeles Philharmonic - now with the London Philharmonic). To this day, Larry continues to be the premier sound designer for both of these orchestras as well as their music technology consultant. His orchestrating and programming talents were recently used in the Las Vegas Beatles show at the Planet Hollywood Casino. This project required re-creating the orchestral arrangements found on such albums as "Stg. Pepper" and "Abbey Road". This year he's continuing to work as a session pianist for ABC's "Desperate Housewives" and 20th Century Fox's "GLEE".

His association with APM started with two Film Trailer music libraries under the "Sonic Elixir" brand name. This expanded to include his latest library of exotic instruments featuring the Shankar family. To this day, Larry Hopkins continues to work as an composer, session pianist and sound designer for Video Games, Television and Feature Films. Be sure to visit larryahopkins.com’s NEWS page to see what his latest projects are.

>Listen to Larry's work in MyAPM

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