Barbara Hannigan
Chief Conductor and Artistic Director
Barbara Hannigan is the Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra from season 2026-27.
Embodying music with an unparalleled dramatic sensibility, soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan is an artist at the forefront of creation. Over more than three decades, she has forged extraordinary artistic partnerships with the world's foremost musicians, directors and choreographers, including Bertrand Chamayou, John Zorn, Romeo Castellucci, Simon Rattle, Sasha Waltz, Claus Guth, Kent Nagano, Christoph Marthaler, Katie Mitchell, Vladimir Jurowski, Andris Nelsons, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Kirill Petrenko, Krzysztof Warlikowski, and Andreas Kriegenburg. The late conductor and pianist Reinbert de Leeuw has been an extraordinary influence and inspiration on her development as a musician.
Balancing her work as both conductor and soprano, Hannigan maintains long-standing relationships with her colleagues in the orchestral, operatic and chamber music realms. In the 25/26 season, Barbara returns to the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (as Principal Guest Conductor), London Symphony Orchestra (as Associate Artist), l'Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne (as Principal Guest Conductor), and Iceland Symphony (where her position as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director will begin in 2026/27 season). She also returns to the Munich Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and the Juilliard School (as Creative Associate). She will make her New York Philharmonic conducting debut, performing her unique version of Poulenc's opera La Voix Humaine, in which she both sings the role of Elle and conducts the orchestra. She will bring this acclaimed production also to La Scala in Milan, to the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra in Istanbul, and to the Czech Philharmonic, as part of her residency at the Prague Spring Festival. Her recital tour with Bertrand Chamayou (works by Messiaen, Scriabin and Zorn) continues in the 2025/26 season, with performance dates in Lausanne, Amsterdam, Gothenburg, Brussels, Madrid, Vienna, Prague and London (Wigmore Hall debut) and she embarks on another European tour alongside the Quatuor Belcea singing the soprano part in Schoenberg's String Quartet No 2. This season she gives the world premiere of Laura Bowler's The White Book, for soprano and orchestra, (with text from Nobel prize laureate Han Kang), with Gothenburg Symphony, London Symphony Orchestra, and Copenhagen Philharmonic, conducted by Bar Avni.
Her awards and honours include being a Governor General's Performing Arts Awards Laureate (2026), 2025 Polar Music Prize Laureate, 2025 Musical America Artist of the Year, "Accademico Onorario (Honorary Academician) (2025) at Accademia di Santa Cecilia, the Order of Canada (2016), Officier des Arts et des Lettres in France (2022), and Gramophone Magazine's 2022 Artist of the Year, Germany's Faust Award (2015), Sweden's Rolf Schock Prize for Musical Arts (2018) and the 2021 Stena Foundation's Cultural Scholarship, Dresdener Musikfestspiele Glashütte Award (2020), Denmark's Léonie Sonning Music Prize (2021), and Canada's De Hueck and Walford Career Achievement Award (2023).