Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the University of Toronto where she studied with Mary Morrison. Further studies took place at the Banff Centre for the Arts and the Royal Conservatory of The Hague where she studied with Meinard Kraak.
She has sung the world premieres of the operas Writing to Vermeer (Saskia) by Louis Andriessen, Wet Snow (Liza) by Jan van de Putte, the solo opera ONE for soprano, video and electronics by Michel van der Aa, and Gerald Barry's The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (Gabrielle) at the English National Opera. Other operatic roles include The Rape of Lucretia (Lucia), Così fan tutte (Despina), Orfeo ed Eurydice (Amore), The Rake’s Progress (Anne Truelove), the title role in Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen, Hasse’s Larinda e Vanesio as well as the title roles in Hasse’s La Contadina and La Fantesca, Mozart’s Bastien und Bastienne, Charpentier’s Actéon (Aréthuze), Armida in Handel’s Rinaldo (Armida) and Ariodante (Dalinda).
She has performed with orchestras and ensembles including the Cleveland Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic’s Scharoun Ensemble, RSO Frankfurt, RSO Finland, l’Orchestre de l’Opera de Paris, Bamberger Symphoniker, l'Orchestre National de France, Combattimento Consort Amsterdam, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Holland’s Radio Kamerorkest, Radio Philharmonic, and Radio Symphony Orchestras, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Asko and Schoenberg Ensembles, SWR German Radio Orchestra, Musikfabrik, Tafelmusik, Esprit Orchestra, Das Kleine Konzert and the Frankfurt Baroque Orchestra. She has worked with conductors including Reinbert de Leeuw, Esa Pekka Salonen, Kurt Masur, Jukka Pekka Saraste, Ingo Metzmacher, Oliver Knussen, Jonathan Nott, Peter Rundel, Michael Gielen, and Peter Eötvös. She has had the privilege of working with composers including György Ligeti, Louis Andriessen, Gerald Barry, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Oliver Knussen and Henri Dutilleux. In 2006 Barbara Hannigan sang in An Index of Metals on occasion of the ISCM World New Music Festival 2006 at the Forum Neues Musiktheater.