Premiere: Atwood & Heggie address gender-based violence
Baritone Joshua Hopkins performs Songs for Murdered Sisters with Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra / credit Curtis Perry
“Atwood’s precise, heartfelt language elicits a profoundly empathetic score from Heggie…” –The New Yorker
Margaret Atwood and Jake Heggie's
Songs for Murdered Sisters
U.S. ORCHESTRAL PREMIERE PERFORMANCES
Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads The Philadelphia Orchestra
featuring baritone Joshua Hopkins
Marian Anderson Hall • January 9 & 11, 2025
Carnegie Hall • January 15, 2025
PHILADELPHIA, PA – November 13, 2024 – On the morning of September 22, 2015, in Renfrew County, Ontario, one man went on a killing spree, brutally murdering three ex-partners in their separate homes. They were victims in a crime recognized as one of the worst cases of domestic violence in Canadian history. The murders devastated the rural Ottawa Valley community where baritone Joshua Hopkins grew up – his sister, Nathalie Warmerdam, was one of these women. Hopkins has since set out on a journey to use his voice to wake people up to the global epidemic of gender-based violence – and their part in it.
His call to action was answered by two exceptional creators. Jake Heggie, hailed by the Wall Street Journal as “the world’s most popular 21st-century opera and art song composer,” agreed to write the music, and Margaret Atwood, the Booker Prize-winning author of more than 50 books of fiction and poetry, including The Handmaid’s Tale, wrote the searing words.
"I have known two women who were murdered, both by jealous former romantic partners, so the killing of Joshua’s sister resonated with me,” shares Atwood. “I made the ‘sisters’ plural because they are indeed – unhappily – very plural. Sisters, daughters, mothers. So many."
Released during the pandemic as a film and Juno-nominated album, Songs for Murdered Sisters was also the centerpiece of an emotional pilgrimage to communities across Ontario with Hopkins and Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra in 2023. The set of eight songs, described by BBC Music Magazine as “at once powerful and tender,” will now receive its long-awaited U.S. orchestral premiere in January 2025. Yannick Nézet-Séguin will lead The Philadelphia Orchestra in performances of this impactful work at Philadelphia’s Marian Anderson Hall on January 9 and 11, 2025, and New York’s Carnegie Hall on January 15, 2025.
Baritone Joshua Hopkins always had a photo of his sister Nathalie watching over him as he recorded Songs for Murdered Sisters
“For years, I felt numb about Nathalie’s murder – it was something too shocking to comprehend,” says Hopkins. “Margaret’s haunting words and Jake's extraordinary music helped me face this loss head-on and process it emotionally through my art. I am honored that Yannick has now chosen to champion this work, and I hope audiences are compelled to explore their own hearts and recognize that we all have a role to play in ending gender-based violence."
Hopkins hopes that sharing this harrowing story through song will inspire others – particularly men – to own their responsibility to end violence against women. He aims to motivate 10,000 men to take the White Ribbon Pledge, promising “never to commit, condone, or remain silent about all forms of gender-based violence.” Hopkins also shared his powerful testimony with a governmental inquest in Canada, convened to recommend policy changes to better protect survivors of intimate partner violence in rural communities. Since then, nearly 100 municipalities in Ontario have declared intimate partner violence to be an epidemic.
"It shouldn't have taken my sister's murder for me to be made aware for the first time how pervasive intimate partner violence is," Hopkins said. "As a society, we seem to accept that men can't control themselves and we find it understandable when they exhibit unhealthy behaviors. It seems clear to me that this acceptance is one of the many negative outcomes of the deep-seated misogyny that is ingrained in our society."
Songs for Murdered Sisters
U.S. Orchestral Premiere
The Philadelphia Orchestra
conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin
featuring baritone Joshua Hopkins
Thursday, January 9, 2025 @ 7:30pm
Saturday, January 11, 2025 @ 8:00pm
Marian Anderson Hall
300 S Broad St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Tickets start at $56
philorch.org
Wednesday, January 15, 2025 @ 8:00pm
Carnegie Hall
57th Street and Seventh Avenue
New York, New York
Tickets start at $39
carnegiehall.org
About Joshua Hopkins
Widely respected as one of the finest singer-actors of his generation, JUNO Award-winning and Grammy-nominated Canadian baritone Joshua Hopkins brings his “glistening, malleable baritone of exceptional beauty” (Opera Today) to a repertoire spanning four centuries. His versatile artistry is frequently on display on the stages of The Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Semperoper Dresden, Washington National Opera, and the Canadian Opera Company. His recent seasons have featured signature roles including Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia, and the title roles in Don Giovanni and Billy Budd. In concert repertoire, he has appeared with the Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra. Joshua’s diverse discography includes timeless classics and new works of varied opera, oratorio and song repertoire.
About Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood, whose work has been published in more than forty-five countries, is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry, critical essays, and graphic novels. Her latest novel, The Testaments, is a co-winner of the 2019 Booker Prize. It is the long-awaited sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, now an award-winning TV series. Her other works of fiction include Cat’s Eye, finalist for the 1989 Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; The MaddAddam Trilogy; and Hag-Seed. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the Franz Kafka International Literary Prize, the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Los Angeles Times Innovator’s Award. She lives in Toronto.
About Jake Heggie
American composer Jake Heggie is best known for Dead Man Walking, the most widely performed new opera of the last 20 years, with a libretto by Terrence McNally, and his critically acclaimed operas Moby-Dick, Three Decembers, Intelligence, and It’s a Wonderful Life, all with libretti by Gene Scheer. In addition to 10 full-length operas and numerous one-acts, Heggie has composed more than 300 art songs, as well as concerti, chamber music, choral, and orchestral works. His compositions have been performed on five continents, and he regularly collaborates with some of the world’s most beloved artists as both composer and pianist. Following the highly acclaimed Met premiere of Dead Man Walking, the Metropolitan Opera welcomes a stunning Leonard Foglia production of Moby-Dick in spring 2025.
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