2023/24 Season Opening with Barbara Hannigan

Barbara Hannigan sings and conducts music that searches for light in dark times at the opening for the LSO’s 2023/24 Barbican season.

The Programme

Richard Strauss’ tone poems always express profound emotions. In Death and Transfiguration he explores the mysteries of life and death, illuminating a programme that takes listeners from darkness to light. Ligeti’s intense harmonies swarm into your ears in his Ramifications for strings – while Haydn’s ‘Lamentatione’ Symphony brings a thrilling contrast in musical style.

Vivier’s poetic Wo bist du Licht! (Where are you, light!) is a musical meditation on human suffering that incorporates audio tape reels of Martin Luther King Jr’s final speech and news of the Vietnam War. And Hannigan sings a tribute to an Algerian freedom fighter in Luigi Nono’s soaring aria Djamila Boupacha which longs for a fairer world.

The Performers

LSO Associate Artist Barbara Hannigan transfixes audiences with her definitive, boundary-pushing performances. For the opening concert of the season, she brings some of her favourite composers together in a signature eclectic mix, that covers over 200 years of music from Joseph Haydn to the unorthodox genius of Claude Vivier.

Critics praise Fleur Barron’s rich, honeyed voice. Her collaborations with Hannigan bring intensity and excitement to a spectrum of contemporary music.

Barbara Hannigan comes closer to having magic musical and theatrical powers than most singers on stage today.’ – The Guardian

Read the concert programme

Header Image © Mark Allan