Barbara Hannigan: Influences

Nothing can contain Barbara Hannigan’s insatiable desire to explore the music of diverse genres, cultures, and eras. The Canadian soprano and conductor, equally at home in classical and contemporary works, is driven by a curiosity and openness mirrored in many strands of influence, several of which are rooted in her Nova Scotia childhood. Her personal playlist amounts to a foot-stomping hymn of praise to creative titans, musical visionaries, and art with heart. It opens with a gem from Barbra Streisand’s live sessions at New York’s Bon Soir nightclub, recorded when she was just 20. “Not only the voice, but the complete artistry and leadership of Barbra Streisand—singer, actor, director, producer, activist—has been a lifelong inspiration to me,” Hannigan tells Apple Music. The irresistible power of larger-than-life musical personalities also surges through her choice of tracks by Glenn Gould, whose Bach recordings were part of Hannigan’s early years (“I was so young, I thought every professional pianist played that way!”), Maria Callas, Ella Fitzgerald, Björk, and Beyoncé. It’s present too in tracks that recall her close association with the music of modernist composers Pierre Boulez and György Ligeti. Hannigan’s playlist also celebrates artists with whom she has worked and from whom she has learned, crucial elements in a lifelong process of artistic discovery and development. Canadian jazz clarinettist and composer Phil Nimmons, she notes, “had a special influence on me as a young singer living outside the box”; Dutch conductor and pianist Reinbert de Leeuw’s Satie recording, meanwhile, was part of the soundtrack to her student days at the University of Toronto: “I never in a million years imagined that he and I would become musical partners, and that he would become a guiding light of my entire career,” she observes. “Coming into contact with Ligeti and his music also brought me into contact with a group of Central African pygmies,” recalls Hannigan. “They were part of our tour of Ligeti's music in 2003, with Reinbert de Leeuw and the Schoenberg Ensemble.” A later encounter with French pianist Bertrand Chamayou opened doors to new creative possibilities. “He’s an extraordinary artist. I first heard Bertrand while he was playing onstage and I was listening backstage, wondering who could make such sounds. And now it has arrived as a great gift to my life to make music with him.”