Soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan of Nova Scotia was named considered one of three recipients of music’s Polar Prize on Tuesday, together with Herbie Hancock and Queen.
The committee for the Sweden-based award cited Hannigan’s capability to push boundaries and broaden listeners’ horizons by way of her inventive selections.
“Her distinctive musicality and braveness make her one of many world’s foremost interpreters of up to date classical music,” the Polar Prize mentioned.
Hannigan’s distinctive stature as a singer and conductor was a course of that started about 15 years in the past.
“I did not got down to have a profession change and be a conductor. I merely agreed to a few gigs in 2011 to check the waters as as to if this was one thing I wished to do,” she instructed CBC’s Q in 2019.
The Polar Prize was based in 1989 by Stig Anderson, the late writer and supervisor of the Swedish band ABBA. Earlier winners have spanned musical genres and have included Paul McCartney, Metallica, Yo-Yo Ma and Ravi Shankar.
WATCH l Hannigan speaks to CBC’s Q in 2019:
Grammy, Juno winner
Hannigan, 53, joins the likes of Cecilia Bartoli and Renée Fleming amongst distinguished vocalists who’ve received the prize, and turns into simply the second Canadian acknowledged as a Polar laureate, following Joni Mitchell in 1996.
Hannigan instructed Q in 2019 that Mitchell’s versatility was an inspiration to her, praising the way in which the singer-songwriter “used her voice, nonetheless she wished and wanted to make use of it, like she wasn’t connected to a specific sound.”
It was the most recent accolade for Hannigan, who was born in Waverley, N.S., and studied music on the College of Toronto earlier than embarking on a profession that has seen her collaborate with orchestras all over the world and seem onscreen in Zorn III, a documentary movie concerning the collaboration between avant-garde composer John Zorn, British pianist Steve Gosling and Harrington.
Her 2018 album Loopy Lady Loopy earned a Grammy in 2018 for greatest solo classical album. Each that launch and 2019’s Vienna: Fin de Siècle, carried out with conductor Reinbert de Leeuw, had been Juno award winners within the classical album class.
Previous to that, in 2016, she was made a member of the Order of Canada.
On her Fb web page, Hannigan thanked commenters congratulating her on the win and mentioned she regarded ahead to attending the ceremony, which is ready to happen in Stockholm on Could 27.
The Polar Prize committee receives nominations from the general public in addition to from the Worldwide Music Council, a UNESCO-founded non-governmental group. Based on music commerce publication Billboard, the prize cash for the laureates quantities to 1 million Swedish krona ($141,650 Cdn).
Queen was cited for its “distinctive and immediately recognizable sound that nobody else can emulate.” The group recognized for hits reminiscent of We Are the Champions, Bohemian Rhapsody and We Will Rock You had been inducted into the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame in 2001, a decade after the dying of lead singer Freddie Mercury on the age of 45.
“We’re extremely and deeply honoured to be given the Polar Music Prize this 12 months,” the band mentioned in a press release. The surviving members are guitarist Brian Could, drummer Roger Taylor and bass participant John Deacon.
The committee acknowledged Herbie Hancock, 84, as a “jazz scientist” who has not simply impressed artists in that style however as an artist who “influenced the event of R&B, funk and hip-hop.” Hancock was received 14 Grammy awards and an Academy award in a profession that started within the early Sixties and included a yearslong flip that decade with the Miles Davis Quintet.
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