![]() She uses her hands as if holding the sound in her fingers, now spacious, now feathery, now rich and compressed. Hannigan’s gestures have a sculptural fluency. The versatile Greek soprano, also one-time lead singer in a heavy metal band, has been part of Hannigan’s important Equilibrium Young Artists initiative.īarbara Hannigan conducts the LSO and soprano Aphrodite Patoulidou in Mahler’s Fourth at the Barbican. She conducted, but handed the last-movement solo in Mahler’s Symphony No 4 to Aphrodite Patoulidou. Last weekend, citing health reasons, she decided not to attempt both endeavours as part of her residency with the London Symphony Orchestra. Many composers have created works for her high-register virtuosity. The Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan’s route to conducting has been through an intrepid singing career. Good luck to Shields, but watch out for the runners up too, all winners in their way. The views of the Hallé musicians, as well as that of the youth orchestra who worked with the finalists in an earlier heat, was fed into the final result. The communication and musical intelligence to express phrasing, dynamics, rhythm, tempo, articulation, requires an immediate rapport with the players. As Elder, announcing the results, noted, the question he is always asked is: “What does a conductor actually do?” The answer is: a lot that cannot be seen from behind. His Mozart had punch and risk, even if that led to some scrambled ensemble, but he handled Elgar’s Enigma Variations with authority, charm and a natural sense of pace and flow. The winner was the youngest on the shortlist: the American Euan Shields, 24, who is still studying at the Juilliard School, New York. Agata Zając, 27, from Poland, showed flair and command in Stravinsky’s Firebird suite, surfing its technical challenges and rising to the challenge of the work’s grand close. The organic growth and the work’s obdurate formal puzzles were skilfully unlocked by Urbina, drawing a buoyant response from the players. Being able to conduct, as each of the finalists did, Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro overture is not enough.Įach then performed a substantial orchestral work: Pablo Urbina, 34, from Spain, had arguably the hardest task with Sibelius’s Symphony No 3. As well as working alongside Mark Elder, now nearing the end of his long stint as the Hallé’s music director, the assistant must run its youth orchestra and engage with the many outreach projects, in care homes, schools, hospitals. From the conversational buzz last week it was clear many in the audience had followed earlier rounds (judged by an international panel of seven) and had views and favourites. Delyana Lazarova was the inaugural winner in 2020, and now ends her successful two-year stint in Manchester. (Wipe clean your image of that job as portrayed in the film Tár, which I vowed never to mention again but must, in the interests of accuracy.) The assistant role has existed at the Hallé since 2002 – the first holder of the title was Edward Gardner, now principal conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra – but the competition itself is new. The aim of the Siemens Hallé international conductors competition is to appoint the Hallé orchestra’s next assistant conductor. Another contest took place the same evening with more than 200 entries from across the world whittled down to a shortlist of eight, three finalists and one deserved winner. T he cheers in Manchester on Tuesday night were not only for the football (City’s 7-0 win against Leipzig).
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