Canadian soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan grew up in the village of Waverley, Nova Scotia. She benefitted from excellent music teachers from an early age. For the past 20 years she has built an international career as an innovative performer, first as singer and subsequently (and simultaneously), as conductor as well. She has collaborated with conductors and directors including Pierre Boulez, Franz Welser-Möst, Krzysztof Warlikowski, Kent Nagano, Sasha Waltz, Katie Mitchell, Christoph Marthaler, Andris Nelsons, Andreas Kriegenburg, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Antonio Pappano, David Zinman, Reinbert de Leeuw, Simon Rattle and Esa-Pekka Salonen, with orchestras including Munich Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, les Orchestres de Radio France, Bayerischen Rundfunk, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, LA Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra and New York Philharmonic, and with opera companies including the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, Opera Garnier in Paris, La Monnaie in Brussels, and the Munich Staatsoper. She has given over 80 world premieres by an international array of composers, while her more traditional opera repertoire include productions of Berg's Lulu at La Monnaie and the Hamburg Staatsoper, Poulenc's La Voix Humaine at Paris' Opera Garnier, and Debussy's Melisande for both Aix-en-Provence and the Ruhrtriennale Festivals. In 2017 she started Equilibrium, an initiative to mentor young professional musicians. She was Artiste Étoile at the 2014 Lucerne Festival, named Musical Personality of the year (2013) by the Syndicat de la Presse Française, Singer of the Year (Opernwelt 2014), won Germany’s Faust Award (2015) and was admitted to the Order of Canada in 2016. She lives in Paris.