Sir Anthony Hopkins, the 88-year-old Oscar-winning actor, has signed with Decca Classics to release Life Is a Dream, an album gathering original compositions written over more than six decades. Conducted by Gustavo Dudamel and performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra, the project marks a significant public turn towards music for a figure best known for his work on stage and screen, underscoring that composition has been a lifelong pursuit for him.

Hopkins, who has played piano since the age of four and began composing for local plays as a teenager, describes music as his "first desire". The album's first single, "Bracken Road", is drawn from his "1947: Suite for Solo Piano and Orchestra" and was inspired by childhood memories of Margam in South Wales. Other tracks include "My Fatherland", based on traditional Welsh melodies, alongside pieces inspired by cinema, his wife and his niece. Recorded at Alexandra Palace in London in April, the album also features pianist Sergio Tiempo, cellist Gregorio Nieto, the Bach Choir and the Boy Choristers of Winchester Cathedral, with Dudamel praising Hopkins's "beauty, craftsmanship and… sense of wonder".