The scene is set for an exciting afternoon with Canadian soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan as she presents her collaboration with American saxophonist and composer John Zorn in the song cycle Jumalattaret, based on the Finnish epic Kalevala.

Hannigan has an extraordinary musical talent and a special ability to find new repertoire and challenge the boundaries between genres. She sings and conducts at world-class levels and performs with world-renowned artists such as Simon Rattle, Esa Pekka Salonen and Antonio Pappano. Her dramatic potential also makes her a sought-after opera singer, and in 2020 she was awarded the Léonie Sonning Music Prize.

The Jumalattaret song cycle is one of Hannigan and Zorn's first projects since they started working together in 2015. The work is extremely demanding for singer and pianist alike with respect to technique as well as expression, and here Hannigan in particular reaches the outermost registers of expression and the outer limits of the voice. When the work was performed in New York in 2019, the New York Times reviewer wrote: "These are the kind of pieces that ask the question over and over again: Can a voice even do this? And in the case of Hannigan, the answer is yes."