This is not a review, but an account of a concert quite out of the ordinary. It took place in the Concert Hall on Thursday 28 and Friday 29 May.
A well-known guest who has often played with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra was on the podium. Barbara Hannigan both conducts and sings, and she also dances occasionally.
First on the programme was a work she had commissioned from Iranian female composer Golfam Khayam in 2022, entitled: Je ne suis pas une fable à canter or in Danish: I am not a fable that can be told. It was first performed in 2023, with Barbara Hannigan conducting and singing the text, which is partly in French but with a few words in Persian Farsi. The composer still lives in Tehran, but has taught at the conservatoires in Copenhagen and Aarhus.
Barbara Hannigan told the story of this work from the podium and then announced that the rest of the concert was written by American composers, after which she explained that she was born in Canada and has always been both fascinated and intimidated by Canada's big neighbour to the south
-This also applies today..... she said discreetly, and the audience in DR-Byen responded with spontaneous applause. They understood it well.
And then the musicians started singing
The American composers played were Ruth Crawford Seeger, Charles Ives, Richard Rodgers and Georges Gershwin, and thus the programme also differed from the tones most often heard in the Concert Hall.
Prior to Gerswin's Girl Crazy suite, Hannigan left the podium and returned wearing a fancy green jacket on the outside of her ”conductor's suit” before starting the orchestra and her own singing voice. And then - towards the end of the number - the musicians of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra suddenly put down their instruments and broke into chorus. It's hardly ever heard before in that place.
You can listen or re-listen to the episode on DR Lyd, the Thursday concert on 28 May 2025. The musicians' song is 1½ hours into the transmission (you are allowed to listen to the rest of the concert as well).