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Often described as “intrepid,” Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan is known for venturing where many singers might fear to tread. She has made her name for fearless vocal performances of contemporary music and for her imaginative programs as a conductor.
Last month, this versatile musician, who received the Order of Canada, was named Musical America’s Musician of the Year, a signal honor in the classical music world.
In her first Rochester appearance, Hannigan will perform in a recital with pianist Bertrand Chamayou Dec. 8 at Kilbourn Hall. Both artists will give public master classes Dec. 7.
Hannigan was an 18-year-old student from Nova Scotia at the University of Toronto, performing a great deal of early music, when she had an “Aha!” moment.
“I knew that in large part, I wanted to concentrate my musical and intellectual energies on living composers,” Hannigan says. Encouraged by a voice professor who also championed modern music, she grew to consider it “my responsibility, my vocation.”
Her emergence as a conductor came much later, in 2011. “A colleague noticed my movements while singing matched the music and said, ‘You sing like a conductor!’”
The acclaimed singer soon was devoting much of her time to conducting, occasionally conducting and singing operatic excerpts simultaneously. Hannigan is now chief conductor and artistic director of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, and a frequent guest conductor worldwide.
In addition to contemporary repertoire, Hannigan feels a strong affinity to music from the turn of the 20th century by composers like Debussy, Mahler, Schoenberg, and Berg, who “freed dissonance” and redefined harmony and tonality.
Hannigan is a famous interpreter of Berg’s “Lulu,” one of the most demanding roles in opera; her recording of music from “Lulu”—as singer and conductor—won a Grammy. That award-winning recording also includes Hannigan’s performances of songs by George Gershwin, a sign of her versatility.
Her Kilbourn Hall program this weekend also demonstrates her wide musical sympathies, pairing music by a rarely performed 20th century French master with a recent work by an American maverick.
On the surface, the composers Olivier Messiaen and John Zorn seem to have little in common, but Hannigan finds a “deep spiritual connection, a mysticism” in their works. (The program also includes Chamayou’s solo performance of three piano works by the turn-of-the-century Russian composer Alexander Scriabin, who was also attracted to the spiritual and the mystic.)
In the music of Messiaen (1908-1992), melodies inspired by Gregorian chant or Hindu scales are supported by complex harmonic and rhythmic structures. His song cycle “Chants de Terre et de Ciel (Songs of Earth and Heaven),” based on poems by his first wife, Claire Delbos, was written in the 1930s after the birth of their second son.
To Hannigan, the cycle represents the new parents’ “love and fear for their child,” expressed in music that communicates Messiaen’s profound Roman Catholic spirituality and an equally profound sensuality.
“There’s an intimacy about this music,” says Hannigan. “You have to surrender yourself to it,” she adds, which expresses her approach to all the music she performs. “I don’t think of interpreting music. I work to incorporate it into my being until it’s simply a part of me.”
Hannigan and Chamayou have recorded “Chants de Terre et de Ciel,” with other Messiaen vocal works.
Hannigan’s repertoire includes some fearsomely virtuosic contemporary music, but when Zorn suggested that Hannigan premiere his “Jumalattaret,” she opened the score to discover “one of the hardest pieces I’ve ever had to learn.”
In fact, the scheduled performance had to be postponed for a year, but the premiere in summer 2018 was confident and triumphant. Hannigan has performed “Jumalattaret” many times since, and says, “It continues to be a joyful experience.”
The word is Finnish, and the work’s inspiration is the “Kalevala,” Finland’s national poetic epic. The work depicts nine different Finnish goddesses in a “mystic, ritualistic” fashion, Hannigan says. Her role as the singer is “an incantation, conjuring them into being.”
“We’re approaching the winter solstice,” she adds. “It’s the darkest time of the year, and also an ideal time for music that invokes the ritual, the spiritual, the meditative.”
The 20-minute piece uses modest forces, but gives the singer and pianist a unique workout. The vocalist speaks passages from the “Kalevala,” but the musical incantation is wordless, rhythmically very complex, and often seemingly out-of-sync with the piano part. Zorn’s music often includes improvisation, but every note is written out, Hannigan observes. “Jumalattaret” does have an ethereal, primeval sound, as if music itself was also being magically conjured up by composer and performer.
Zorn, a saxophonist and prolific composer, creates music in the jazz, rock, and classical realms and has been nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize.
Hannigan, who has worked with him many times since premiering “Jumalattaret,” calls Zorn “a force of nature, a mentor, a lightning bolt, and a catalyst. He has created his own world within the Big Classical Music Machine, and within his world, he has complete freedom.”
Barbara Hannigan, soprano, and Bertrand Chamayou, piano, will perform music of Messiaen, Scriabin, and Zorn in the Eastman School of Music’s Kilbourn Concert Series on Dec. 8 at 3 p.m. in Kilbourn Hall, 26 Gibbs Street. Go here for information and tickets.
On Saturday, Dec. 7, Eastman will also present a voice master class with Hannigan at 1 p.m. and a piano master class with Chamayou at 3 p.m., both in Kilbourn Hall. Admission is free.
David Raymond is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer. The Beacon welcomes comments and letters from readers who adhere to our comment policy including use of their full, real name. See “Leave a Reply” below to discuss on this post. Comments of a general nature may be submitted to the Letters page by emailing [email protected].
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