Copenhagen Phil

Barbara Hannigan, soprano
Copenhagen Phil
Bar Avni, conductor

Laura Bowler: The White Book (commissioned work and world premiere, inspired by and with excerpts from Han Kang’s The White Book)

Programme also includes:
Ligeti: Lontano
R. Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra
Conducted by Barbara Hannigan

VENUE NOTE
Canadian Barbara Hannigan is an absolute world star! A unique one that at one and the same concert generously demonstrates the multi-talented as both conductor and singer. This evening is no exception, when Richard Strauss’ music-philosophical masterpiece about Zarathustra, a major work by Ligeti and a world premiere by Laura Bowler are on the program.

For two decades, Barbara Hannigan was known as the world’s leading soprano in the interpretation of new music. But in 2011 she also began conducting and quickly proved herself to be a sublime orchestra leader. Hannigan is never afraid to go his own way and put together deeply original concert programs that unite very different eras and expressions. Her artistic level is unsurpassed – and in 2020 she deservedly received the Léonie Sonning Music Prize in Copenhagen and in 2025 the Swedish Polar Prize.

Now she conducts the Copenhagen Phil in Richard Strauss’ epic tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra based on Nietzsche’s philosophical work of the same name. The music of Hungarian György Ligeti is close to Hannigan’s heart. Lontano is among the composer’s most famous works. Not least because film director Stanley Kubrick used Lontano in the film classic The Shining.

Copenhagen Phil has commissioned The White Book (with selected texts by the Nobel Prize-winning author Han Kang) by the British composer phenomenon Laura Bowler, written specifically for Barbara Hannigan as soprano soloist. On the podium of this world premiere is the young conductor Bar Avni, a protégé of Hannigan whose career has taken off in recent years.