Reflecting on Rivers: Annual Jazz Festival Celebrates 50 Years of RSC

Though the festival included the work of many jazz composers, the 2025 featured artist was jazz legend Greg Hopkins, a trumpeter and composer. Hopkins may be a familiar face for fans of Rivers jazz—he’s been involved with Rivers for about a decade. As the commissioned composer for this year’s festival, Hopkins visited Rivers throughout the fall to workshop his piece, “Reflecting on Rivers,” with students before they premiered it at the festival. 

All RSC jazz ensembles took to the stage over the course of the afternoon. The music continued into the evening after a short dinner break, during which an informal arrangement of standing and seated tables adorned with tea lights gave the space the feel of an intimate jazz club.

The highlight of the evening was the world premiere of Hopkins’ piece “Reflecting on Rivers,” performed by the Rivers Honors Big Band and Hopkins on trumpet. Before the performance, Hopkins provided some background on the composition, describing it as a saga that spans “birth, fighting, and then rebirth.” 

In addition to performing with Honors Big Band, Hopkins performed a set with his band, The Greg Hopkins Jazz Orchestra. The group performed a mix of Hopkins’ compositions and other compositions that are meaningful to him, including Hopkins’ arrangement of a medley of Dizzy Gillespie tunes—which was performed in 1989 when Gillespie was presented with an honorary doctorate at Berklee College of Music. At the festival, Hopkins alternated between conducting and joining in on trumpet for all of the pieces. Rivers Jazz Director Philippe Crettien joined The Greg Hopkins Jazz Orchestra on saxophone and treated the crowd, which included many of his students, to several solos.

At an all-school assembly on December 1, the Honors Big Band reprised their performance of “Reflecting on Rivers,” once again joined by Hopkins on trumpet. Performing Arts Department Chair Dan Shaud P’31 introduced the piece as “a musical journey between two aspects”—a struggle between childlike wonder and the day-to-day intensity of the world. Shaud explained the unusual meter used in the piece and had the audience clap along to get a feel for it before the performance. 

The piece has a runtime of about 10 minutes, including solos, after which Hopkins thanked Rivers and the band for the opportunity to work together. “I want to thank the band for working on this piece so diligently,” Hopkins said. “I always write challenging music, but they got the challenge, and they went beyond.”