Barbara Hannigan, Raoul Steffani, Camerata RCO & Rolf Verbeek
Biography Barbara Hannigan, Raoul Steffani, Camerata RCO & Rolf Verbeek
Barbara Hannigan
Embodying music with an unparalleled dramatic sensibility, soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan is an artist at the forefront of creation. Her artistic colleagues include Simon Rattle, Sasha Waltz, Kent Nagano, Vladimir Jurowski, John Zorn, Andreas Kriegenburg, Andris Nelsons, Esa Pekka Salonen, Christoph Marthaler, Antonio Pappano, Katie Mitchell, Kirill Petrenko, and Krszysztof Warlikowski. The late conductor and pianist Reinbert de Leeuw has been an extraordinary influence and inspiration on her development as a musician.
The Canadian musician has shown a profound commitment to the music of our time and has given the world première performances of over 85 new creations. Hannigan has collaborated extensively with composers including Boulez, Zorn, Dutilleux, Ligeti, Stockhausen, Sciarrino, Barry, Dusapin, Dean, Benjamin and Abrahamsen.
The 20/21 season presented both challenges and opportunities, and true to form, Barbara continued at her own speed of light, premiering a new live video production of La Voix Humaine in which she both sings and conducts, created in collaboration with video artist Denis Guéguin as part of her residency with l’Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. She performed across Europe with colleagues including Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO, Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony, Munich Philharmonic, festivals in Ludwigsburg and Aix en Provence, and celebrated her 50th birthday at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, conducting the Ludwig Orchestra in works of Haydn, Copland, Barry and two Kurt Weill songs arranged for Barbara by Bill Elliott.
The 21/22 season brings her return to La Monnaie as Lulu in the much-awaited remount of her first Lulu production with Warlikowski from 2012.
Her La Voix Humaine production will take her to London Symphony Orchestra and Munich Philharmonic, and she happily returns to Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, and Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra as well as to her younger colleagues of The Juilliard School.
She will sing the world premiere of a new work by Zosha di Castri with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and present several concerts with vocal works by John Zorn in Antwerp, Hamburg and Modena.
Hannigan’s album as both singer and conductor, Crazy Girl Crazy (2017), won the 2018 Grammy Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal album and numerous other awards including an Edison and a Juno. Other recent albums include Vienna: fin de siècle, and Satie’s Socrate, both with pianist Reinbert de Leeuw. In spring 2020 she released her latest album on Alpha Classics, La Passione with works of Nono, Haydn and Grisey. Three new cd recordings for the Alpha label are on the way to release.
Barbara’s commitment to the younger generation of musicians led her to create the mentoring initiative Equilibrium Young Artists in 2017, and in 2020, Barbara created Momentum: our Future Now, an initiative which encourage other leading artists and organizations to support and mentor younger professional musicians. In spring 2020 Barbara was awarded the Dresdener Musikfestspiele Glashütte Award, and May 2021 saw her awarded Denmark’s prestigious Léonie Sonning Music Prize. The financial component of both awards was donated to young artists initiatives.
Originally from Nova Scotia, Barbara resides in Finistère, on the northwest coast of France.
Raoul Steffani
is a Dutch baritone and recipient of the prestigious Grachtenfestival Prize 2018, the Elisabeth Evertsprijs 2016, and the Dutch Classical Talent Audience Award 2018. Since May 2021, Raoul has been a member of Equilibrium, the Young Artist Programme of Barbara Hannigan.
In the 2022-23 season, he makes his debut at Dutch National Opera in a new operetta production led by Lorenzo Viotti and staged by Steef de Jong. In the 2020-21 season, Raoul made his professional opera debut at the Opéra National de Lyon as Ramiro in Ravel’s L’heure espagnole as part of Lyon’s opera studio, after which he was invited to sing Ned Keene in Britten’s Peter Grimes in the Netherlands and again Ramiro at the Opéra de Toulon.
Other highlights of the upcoming season include Mozart aria concerts with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, Frank Martin’s Ode à la musique with the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, various St Matthew Passion concerts with the orchestra Phion (part: Jesus) led by Reinhard Goebel and with philharmonie zuidnederland (part: bass arias) led by Duncan Ward, and Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem with the Residentie Orchestra led by Anja Bihlmaier. In previous seasons, he has worked with conductors such as Sir Mark Elder, Vladimir Jurowsky, Sigiswald Kuijken, Otto Tausk, Jos van Veldhoven, and David Zinman. Orchestras with whom he has worked, include the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Residentie Orchestra The Hague, Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra, Camerata RCO, Camerata Salzburg, Dutch Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, philharmonie zuidnederland, Phion and the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra.
Highlights of last season include Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with Ensemble Domestica (musicians from the Rotterdam Philharmonic) and an international tour of Bach’s Johannes Passion (part: Jesus) with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment led by Mark Padmore.
Since the early days of his career, Raoul Steffani has been a dedicated recitalist with a great passion for the art song repertoire. He has given song recitals for Oxford Lieder Festival, International Lied Festival Zeist, Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam and Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, among other venues. This season, he performs Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch with soprano Laetitia Gerards and pianist Daan Boertien at numerous venues in the Netherlands. He will also return to the Concertgebouw’s Recital Hall for two solo recitals. He has recorded two Lieder albums for Challenge Classics with pianist Gerold Huber: Love’s Spring (2021), dedicated to Robert and Clara Schumann, includes songs and duets with mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená. For his debut album Deep in a dream, that includes early works by Schumann, Grieg, Sibelius and Berg, he received much critical acclaim from the international press; “This is all first-rate, refined singing with lucid diction, elegant technique, and a palpable affinity for what he is singing.” (American Record Guide, 2018) In October 2022, Alpha Records releases the album Sehnsucht, featuring Barbara Hannigan, Camerata RCO and Raoul Steffani, which includes Raoul’s performance of Berg’s Vier Gesänge Opus. 2 in a new orchestration.
Raoul studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna and at the conservatories of Amsterdam and Tilburg, from which he graduated summa cum laude. He continues working with his longtime vocal coach Margreet Honig and participated in masterclasses with Thomas Hampson, Christa Ludwig, Dame Felicity Lott and Elly Ameling. From 2016 to 2018 he was a member of the Dutch National Opera Academy, where he debuted the role of Guglielmo (Così fan tutte). Besides his vocal studies, Raoul studied Swedish language and culture at the University of Amsterdam.
