Barbara Hannigan conducts and sings

The versatile Barbara Hannigan returns with a moving programme about death, trascience and rebirth. Not only does she conduct the orchestra, she also showcases her flawless soprano. In Sibelius' Luonnotar , she sings about sacrifice and rebirth. European and Persian traditions mingle in Golfam Khayam’s comforting and richly detailed I am not a tale to be told .

As a precocious 25-year-old, Richard Strauss looked ahead to the redemption of death in Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration) . Over a century earlier, Haydn's ‘ Farewell Symphony’ also seemed to reflect on death. The orchestra gradually leaving the stage in the final movement was intended as a protest against the working conditions of his musicians, but the effect, at the end of this bittersweet and turbulent symphony, is particularly poignant.