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Barbara Hannigan makes a compelling debut conducting the Cleveland Orchestra

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Critically acclaimed Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan has built a separate – though sometimes simultaneous – career as a conductor. She made her conducting debut with the Cleveland Orchestra on Thursday, leading the ensemble in works by Haydn, Strauss Vivier, and Ligeti. Photo: Roger Mastroianni

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com 

by Kevin McLaughlin

Barbara Hannigan, the Canadian dynamo who started singing professionally at 17 and later added separate — though sometimes simultaneous — responsibilities as conductor, has at last made her debut in that role with The Cleveland Orchestra. That she might give soaring accounts of mainstream and contemporary works by Haydn, Strauss Vivier, and Ligeti, was hoped for, even if not surprising, but that she should make such works about mourning, death, and loneliness so compelling and listenable, may be a good reason to have her back.

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The Cleveland Orchestra presents Claude Vivier’s Lonely Child: a conversation with Aphrodite Patoulidou

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by Mike Telin

Canadian composer Claude Vivier was born in 1948 in Montreal. That same day he was placed in an orphanage by his mother where he would live until age two and a half, when he was adopted by the Vivier family. The composer spent his entire life in hopes of finding his birth parents — but to no avail. His ongoing search for his identity inspired many of his compositions including his 1980 work for soprano and orchestra, Lonely Child.

On Thursday, November 9 at 7:30 pm, soprano Aphrodite Patoulidou will sing Vivier’s haunting work with The Cleveland Orchestra. The Severance Music Center program, under the direction of Barbara Hannigan, also includes Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 44 (“Trauersinfonie”) and Richard Strauss’s Death and Transfiguration. The program will be repeated on Friday at 11:00 (no Vivier) and Saturday at 8:00. Tickets are available online.

Born in Thessaloniki, Greece, Aphrodite Patoulidou exemplifies the 21st-century creative. Now based in Berlin, the soprano is also a songwriter, photographer, painter, and poet. She was also the lead singer with the heavy metal band Igorrr.

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The Gift of Music

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CDsThe gift of music is always a wonderful way to say happy holidays to friends and family. The week, the editors and correspondents of ClevelandClassical.com are pleased to suggest nineteen CDs released in 2016 by outstanding musicians, most of whom call Northeast Ohio home.

There’s certainly something on this list for every classical music lover. Click on the links at the end of each paragraph to read complete reviews of each album. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra with Barbara Hannigan (Jan. 14)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Hannigan-FWMSome of the most arresting concert works don’t end with a bang, but a whisper. Both Hans Abrahamsen’s let me tell you and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 4 dissipated into silence at Severance Hall on Thursday, January 14, as music director Franz Welser-Möst held off the eventual ovations for a long, thoughtful moment. There was a lot to reflect on in The Cleveland Orchestra’s playing of both an enthralling new work and a sprawling Soviet-era symphony. [Read more…]

CD Review:
Barbara Hannigan in Hans Abrahamsen’s let me tell you

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by Daniel Hathaway

let-me-tell-you-CDReleased on January 8, just a week before her U.S. premiere of the work with The Cleveland Orchestra, Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan’s recording of Hans Abrahamsen’s let me tell you with Andris Nelsons and the Bavarian Radio Orchestra should count as one of the most important new music CDs of 2016. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra: soprano Barbara Hannigan to sing U.S. premiere of Abrahamsen’s let me tell you

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by Christine Jay

Hannigan-performanceWhen critically acclaimed soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan’s surprise birthday plans for her friend and novelist Paul Griffiths fell through, she suggested a gift of even greater implications: a project of Griffiths’ words animated by Hannigan’s liquid sound. The end product will be heard on Thursday and Friday, January 14 and 15 in Severance Hall when Hannigan joins Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra in the United States premiere of Hans Abrahamsen’s let me tell you.

This situation, indeed, is an example of collaboration at its finest; a soprano, librettist, and composer each separately became enthralled in telling a story. The bonding narrative is Griffiths’ 2008 novel let me tell you, a work utilizing the 481 words appropriated to Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Told from Ophelia’s point of view, Griffiths depicts her life’s maturation, as she is perpetually caught in a web of royalty and patriarchy until her father’s murder and her subsequent, aqueous suicide. [Read more…]

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