The Point of the Baton is the personal and surprisingly candid story of John Hopkins, from his first cello lesson at sixteen, to a Chief Conductor of the BBC at 24, “Mr. Music” of New Zealand, Federal Director of ABC music, founding Dean of Music at the Victorian College of the Arts, Director of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and an inspiring teacher. This story recounts his experience with divas and artists – Stravinsky, Te Kanawa, Ashkenazy, Arrau, Menuhin, Kodaly, and Oistrakh – and his experiences conducting in Soviet Moscow, in Mao’s China, and of taking orchestral music to the dangerous townships of South Africa immediately after apartheid ended.

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