The Brooklyn-based Jacqueline Hopkins Choir on Sunday, March 1, headlined a “joyful and meaningful” Black History Month Concert at St. Gabriel’s Episcopal Church on Hawthorne Street in Brooklyn.
According to Chris Bryant, the church’s organist and music minister, it was the church’s second annual concert celebrating what Bryant described as “the rich choral and instrumental works of African American composers,” including Jamaican-American composer Jacqueline Hopkins, founder and president of the choir named after her.
Hopkins told Caribbean Life that her choir performed two movements from her 10-movement Requiem, entitled, “The Hopkins Requiem.”
She said the songs were “Rex Tremendae” and “Jerusalem” that was sung in Latin.
“I feel honored to have been recognized as a composer at this special event,” Hopkins said. “’It is a dream come true as an artist.”
She said other highlights of the concert included performances by Ajani Shortt, a 10th grader at Medgar Evers College Preparatory School, who played “Be Alive” by Beyoncé on steel pan; and Medgar Evers College Preparatory Dance Company, who dance while the poem “New Day” was read by poet Amanda Gorman.
“The poem asserts that we ‘forever overcome’”, Hopkins said.
Andrea Wesley, the church’s administrative assistant, said that the event was Bryant’s “brainchild,” and that 98 percent of the church’s approximate 500-member congregation is of Caribbean heritage.
The world premiere of The Jacqueline Hopkins Choir took place on Oct. 12, 2025 at the nearby Fenimore Street United Methodist Church (FSUMC), the church of Hopkins’ childhood, where her Jamaican-born mother, her Grenville, N.C.-born father, and her siblings had worshipped every Sunday.
At the time, Hopkins told Caribbean Life that the event was “a very moving experience on many levels.”
She said she felt “great nostalgia, as well as pride,” in launching her choir’s “world premiere” at the 136-year-old church.
“I felt that my parents were looking on from heaven and applauding along with the congregation,” Hopkins said. “In addition, I felt excited to share my music with the public.”
She said the premiere was “an overwhelming success because the crowd not only clapped enthusiastically, and for a long period of time, but several people also screamed with glee.”
Hopkins said “this was only the beginning,” as she has a goal to perform all 10 movements of her Requiem at as many churches as possible in the near future.
On Aug. 28, 2022, Hopkins said she sang excerpts of her work at FSUMC in memory of her parents.
More recently, in August 2025, she said she established The Jacqueline Hopkins Choir.
Hopkins, who has lived in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn her entire life, said she is the “proud daughter” of the late Harold and Louise Hopkins, and was also “proud” of her Jamaican heritage.
Hopkins said she first studied music with Louvina G. Pointer, mother of classical violinist Noel Pointer, as a member of the choir at Brooklyn ‘s I.S. 61.
She said she continued to study music at Hunter College, as a member of the choir, under the direction of maestro Paul F. Mueller.
“If I never was in the choir under Paul F. Mueller, I would never have written my own Requiem,” Hopkins said. “It would be impossible. He inspired me.
“If there was no Paul F. Mueller, there would not be a Hopkins Requiem,” she stressed, stating that Prof. Mueller taught her Mozart’s Requiem and Fauré’s Requiem.
Hopkins said the works she performed at Hunter College included the Requiem Masses of both Gabriel Fauré and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
At the height of the pandemic, Hopkins said she spent two years composing her own Requiem entitled, “The Hopkins Requiem.”
The two selections The Jacqueline Hopkins Choir performed, to rave reviews, during Worship Service at FSUMC, on Oct. 12, were the same as at St. Gabriels’s – “Rex Tremendae” and “Jerusalem.”
