The Grammy Award-winning singer and French pianist Bertrand Chamayou will perform Messiaen, Scriabin and an especially challenging work by John Zorn
How does internationally acclaimed, Grammy Award-winning soprano Barbara Hannigan describe her performance of the notoriously thorny work of composer John Zorn?
She compares it to Olympian Simone Biles executing her famously difficult floor routine.
For her San Diego debut on Thursday, Hannigan will sing Zorn’s song cycle, Jumalattaret, with Bertrand Chamayou on piano, at La Jolla Music Society’s Baker-Baum Concert Hall in La Jolla. Inspired by the goddesses of Finnish mythology, the work includes text, bird calls, rhythmic complexities, hand-clapping and daring leaps between high and low notes.
“There are aspects of Simone Biles’ performances that are similar to tackling this vocal writing,” Hannigan said, from her home in Paris. “When Simone Biles does her floor routine, she isn’t standing there, showing us that this is going to be really difficult. She literally has this open joy on her face, and that’s the way that this music is as well. It’s super virtuosic, but it’s also fun to deliver.
“It has different challenges — to sing a beautiful line that seems to go on forever, and other times it’s fast and acrobatic singing.”
Hannigan, 53, has been working closely with composers since singing her first world premiere at the age of 19. A Nova Scotia native who attended the University of Toronto for both undergraduate and graduate studies, she has built a global reputation for performing and championing new music. On Nov. 20, she was named 2025 Artist of the Year by the prestigious classical music magazine Musical America.
“It’s pretty neat to be included in the same ranks as musicians like Leonard Bernstein,” she said of the award. “And it’s not for singer, but for Artist of the Year, which is especially nice. I’m psyched!”
One of Hannigan’s most renowned performances was as a doomed femme fatale in Alban Berg’s celebrated opera, Lulu. She starred in the title role in 2012 and again in later revivals. Not trained as a ballerina, Hannigan was en pointe for most of the three-hour performance.
When she first looked at Zorn’s score for Jumalattaret, Hannigan deemed parts of it “unsingable.” But she wanted to tackle the piece and joined forces with the cutting-edge composer to prove her wrong.
Their intense collaboration is chronicled in the film “Zorn III (2018−2022)” by French director and actor Mathieu Amalric. It is his third documentary in a trilogy of films about Zorn.
“I’ve listened to recordings of John and his music since I was a student, many years before I met him in 2015,” Hannigan recalled. “I met him in New York and felt I was sitting across from this incredibly energetic, creative force.
“I really wanted to work with him. Soon after that, he handed me this score for Jumalattaret, which had never been performed, and said: ‘Why don’t you start with this?’ I mean, it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever learned!”
Included on the recently released album, “Hannigan Sings Zorn Volume One,” Jumalattaret was the most challenging piece. Hannigan has been performing the song cycle since 2019, receiving praise from audiences, critics and fellow artists.
New York-based violinist Austin Wulliman of JACK Quartet has twice witnessed Hannigan performing Jumalattaret. He is quite familiar with Zorn’s work; his group’s recording of all eight of the composer’s string quartets will be released in January.
“There’s nobody like Barbara Hannigan!” Wulliman enthused. “It’s an amazing thing to see her performing this piece. It’s insanely virtuosic, beautifully romantic and a sweeping journey. She is truly a gem.”
Hannigan’s habit of intense preparation is shared by pianist Chamayou. A respected interpreter of French composers, he has won awards for his albums featuring the music of Ravel, Liszt and Saint-Saëns, which earned him the prestigious Gramophone Award for Recording of the Year.
Hannigan and Chamayou’s album “Messiaen” was released earlier this year on the Outhere Music label. They chose to explore the major Messiaen song cycles from the 1930s because it was new repertoire for both artists.
“We learned it together in very intensive periods of work,” Hannigan said. “We went to a house in the south of France. Bertrand’s a professional-level chef. We rehearsed, cooked and ate. Music, good food and working hard — that was an amazing way to begin our collaboration.”
On Thursday, Chamayou and Hannigan will perform Messiaen’s Chants de terre et de ciel(Songs of earth and heaven), which is featured on the Messiaen album.
The French composer, a devout Catholic, wrote the song cycle shortly after his marriage and birth of his son. The work is known for mixing themes of human desire and religious fervor.
“It’s about this union of father, mother and their child, and the joy — and the fear, apprehension and ecstasy — that comes with that deep, deep love.” Hannigan said. “It’s also sensual, lyrical music.”
She also noted the thread connecting the selections that will be performed here Thursday. In Jumalattaret, Zorn honors Finland’s goddesses while Messiaen shares his deep religious devotion. In between, Chamayou will play two pieces by Alexander Scriabin, the Russian composer, mystic and philosopher.
“We put all three pieces together to create a kind of 70-minute spiritual journey,” Hannigan explained. “It’s not by coincidence that winter solstice is coming. Everybody’s thinking about their Christmas or New Year holidays.
“We’re also heading towards the darkest time of the year. So, it’s the right time for this intensely deep kind of transcendent program.”
Already admired for innovative programming when performing and recording, Hannigan began to conduct in 2011 and now conducts more often than she sings professionally.
Currently the principal guest conductor of Sweden’s Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, she is preparing for her 2026 position as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra.
“I’ve been back to Iceland twice already, and I’ll be back again in February,” she said. “I love doing things like this. I love making programs, exploring repertoire and seeing how the pieces of the puzzle fit together. It’s an excellent next step for me.”
But before that step is the Hannigan/Chamayou tour visit in La Jolla.
“I wanted to add La Jolla Music Society to our tour because it’s a concert series that musicians have a lot of respect for,” she said. “I was very happy it worked out.”
Barbara Hannigan, soprano and Bertrand Chamayou, piano
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday (Prelude lecture by Michael Gerdes, director of orchestras at San Diego State University, at 6:30 p.m.)
Where: Baker-Baum Concert Hall, Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center, 7600 Fay Avenue, La Jolla
Tickets: $43-$70
Phone: 858-459-3728
Online: theconrad.org
Prelude Lecture by Michael Gerdes, Director of Orchestras at San Diego State University, 6:30 p.m.