Open Space: Barbara Hannigan Conducts Strauss | Adella

HAYDN Symphony No. 44, “Trauersymphonie” VIVIER Lonely Child LIGETI Lontano R. STRAUSS Death and Transfiguration Moving listeners through memory, love, loneliness, triumph, and surrender, the singular artist Barbara Hannigan conducts The Cleveland Orchestra in works by Haydn, Vivier, Ligeti, and Richard Strauss. She discusses her choice of works by Haydn (“my dearest composer”) and Ligeti, whom she worked with as a singer. For Vivier’s haunting “Lonely Child”, she is joined by protégé and fellow soprano, Aphrodite Patoulidou. Hannigan closes the evening with the young Richard Strauss’s “Death and Transfiguration”, a piece she likens to a clearing of the sky, the finding of resolution. Reflecting on her formative childhood in Nova Scotia, Hannigan observes how it continues to shape her, and shares her enduring love of structure and play, the use of metaphor in communicating with musicians, and the importance of preparation and the freedom it affords. Patoulidou joins her for a conversation about “Lonely Child”, a piece Hannigan has often performed as a singer, and the ways their views and interpretations of it grow, deepen, and change over time. The Cleveland Orchestra Barbara Hannigan, conductor Aphrodite Patoulidou, soprano