Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra's Principal Guest Conductor Barbara Hannigan

The 2025-2026 season is Barbara Hannigan’s 7th season as Principal Guest Conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. She shares the title with Pekka Kuusisto.

The succesful soprano and conductor was awarded the 2025 Polar Music Prize for “a unique talent for broadening the listener’s horizons with the music she chooses to program, perform and record. “

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. Her concerts are intended as exciting overall experiences where the end result is greater than the sum of the parts. Internationally, she works successfully with, among others, the Berliner Philharmoniker, the London Symphony Orchestra, where she is Associate Artist, and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, where she is Première Artiste Invitée.

The audience may be treated to a moving solo song, surprising music combinations or a dramatic performance that touches deeply. When she both conducts and sings, a very special feeling arises in the interaction with the audience.

The world’s critics have also noticed this. The Financial Times wrote that “Hannigan has an ability to create colors of exceptional poetic beauty” and Presto stated that “her interpretation is extremely intense and highly personal.”

“Already at the age of nineteen or twenty, I realized that I don’t want people to think too much. I don’t want them to analyze a performance, but to feel” Barbara Hannigan

Barbara Hannigan has had a rewarding collaboration with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra for many years. She gave her first concert with the orchestra in 2013 as conductor and soloist in pieces by Mozart, Ligeti and Rossini. In 2015-2016, Hannigan was the orchestra’s Artist in Residence with Alban Berg’s Lulu suite in the repertoire. In 2018 Barbara Hannigan gave acclaimed performances of Stravinsky’s opera The Rake’s Progress.

In 2019 she was appointed the orchestra’s first guest conductor, a contract she has extended to 2028. She has presented both Schönberg’s powerful Verklärte Nacht and the suite from Gershwin’s irresistible Girl Crazy.

The audience in Gothenburg was 2022 enjoying the new production of Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine. The audience has also been invited to tailor-made programs such as Animatopia, where we followed into the world of animals, and Americana, which depicted USA in the making at the beginning of the 20th century. In Mozart’s Requiem as well as in chamber works by Hindemith, Schönberg, Stravinsky and Caroline Shaw, she shows an inexhaustible power and sense of communication.

With the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, she has also made a successful guest appearance at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg with music by Offenbach, Stravinsky and Kurt Weill, as well as a series of recordings for GSOplay.

During the years she has been awarded several prizes and awards. 2021 she received the Léonie Sonning Music Prize in Copenhagen and was awarded an honorary scholarship by The Sten A Olsson Foundation for Research and Culture. 2024 she was awarded Artist of The Year by the prestigious magazine Musical America.

In August 2026 Barbara Hannigan starts her position as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director at The Iceland Symphony Orchestra (ISO) for an initial period of three seasons.

As a singer and conductor, Barbara Hanniga collaborates with leading orchestras such as the London Symphony Orchestra, the French Radio Philharmonic, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Munich Philharmonic. Barbara Hannigan’s debut album as a singer and conductor, Crazy Girl Crazy, was released in 2017 and received both a Grammy and a Juno for best vocal album. In May 2026 she presents her first album recording with the Gothenburg Symphony.

Her commitment to the younger generation of musicians led her to create the mentor initiative Equilibrium Young Artists 2017.

“What I can do is bring young artists to my sphere of performance, invite them to share the stage with me and learn with me. We will work as colleagues. I will lead, as music director for the projects, and will mentor the younger artists by providing professional guidance and advice. I will give advice, consult and guide in situations before and after rehearsals, but the stimulus for the discipline I try to instill should come from the work environment. ” Barbara Hannigan

Barbara Hannigan shares the title as Principal Guest Conductor with Pekka Kuusisto from autumn 2025.