‘Like turning your soul upside down’: Barbara Hannigan and Laura Bowler talk about their devastating author ‘The White Book’ | classical music

IIt’s the morning after the night before when I meet Canadian soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan and British composer and singer Laura Buller. We’re in Gothenburg, backstage at the Swedish city’s elegant Concerthus. The previous night, Hannigan sang the world premiere of Bowler’s new work, The White Book, with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. Neither of them slept well. Hannigan kept eating cheese brought from her home in France and chatting with the band’s assistant conductor. Bowler was “very wired” and was up until 2 a.m.

They both look shocked. They’re also keen to compare notes, which is why parts of our conversation feel less like an interview and more like an adrenaline-filled debrief. And not just debriefing either. In high-energy asides, they discuss the importance of traveling with your tea (Yorkshire for Hannigan, Clipper for Buller), where you can buy the best cakes in Gothenburg (Eva Paley, advises Hannigan), volcanoes (Bowler is obsessed) and what “senior conductors” earn – too much, Hannigan thinks. They should pay their assistants to attend rehearsals out of their own fees, as she does. “Tithes! Tithes!” She concludes with a flourish.

In song, in the opera and on the podium, Hannigan exudes authority. Offstage, she’s also a force to be reckoned with. The fact that Bowler and I were meeting at the same time is a last-minute change made at Hannigan’s request earlier that morning. Buller and I had already talked at a nearby café, so we arrived together. Before entering Hannigan’s dressing room, we take off our shoes “because of the dress.”

The garment looms above us as we speak, spilling like ghosts over the front of the wardrobe. Hannigan wore it on stage at the premiere and it will also appear in the White Book debut in London (with the London Symphony Orchestra) and Copenhagen (with the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra). It is an extremely delicate and unique confection of white silk and wool linen, created by Japanese fashion designer Yuima Nakazato, in which bundles of fabric are held together by a system of small magnets. Hannigan needed a video tutorial to show how it works. Bowler marvels at the “wonderful balance of strength and fragility, which seems perfect for the piece.”

Her collection outlines five short chapters from Booker and Nobel Prize-winning author Han Kang’s The White Book, an “autobiographical meditation” on the death of the narrator’s infant sister. It begins with a series of white objects—“blank paper/white dog/white hair/shroud”—and ends with an almost ecstatic saturation of whiteness. And in the middle, the empty, almost voiceless novel is littered with blank pages and blank spaces.

Bowler first read Kang’s script at the Christie Hospital in Manchester, where her mother was being treated for acute myeloid leukemia. She read the book over and over at her mother’s bedside. “A lot of times she was in a very bad state and couldn’t speak or was just sleeping. And there was something about the way Han Kang painted these pictures — they captured that moment for me.”

Buller approached Kang and her translator to ask permission to set parts of the text and to make plans for a new work. Then her situation changed radically. “After my mother recovered from leukemia in September 2022, she died in an accident in November,” she carefully explains. It’s a startling discovery but Buller remains focused. “So I reached out to Han Kang again. I wrote this very vulnerable and very personal script, and I felt it was very important for me to be completely transparent about why this meant so much to me.”

The excerpts chosen by Bowler “embody the balance between life and death – the pain of longing and also the pain of life and the pain of death. But also the kind of preservation of life, in your memory and in your surroundings, even when someone is no longer here.” This tension between presence and absence runs through Bowler’s score, haunting the repetitions and oscillations of its high vocal line and its deeply expressive use of dynamic contrasts on the brink and eerie electronics. As in much of Bowler’s music, there are intricate orchestral details, but there is also a breathtaking sense of space.

Bowler had hoped from the beginning to compose the piece dedicated to Hannigan. “I’ve listened to Barbara forever,” she admits. “She’s truly my favorite artist. Partly because of her music, but also because of her ability to work.”

The White Paper is no exception. Hannigan’s intense involvement during the premiere and as we spoke couldn’t be missed. It pops up to illustrate the crucial interval on the piano and describes in technical terms exactly how you created the tone color shift that a particular phrase requires. “It’s like turning your soul inside out,” she assured me. She stresses that she should not just “perform” Bowler’s piece. “It’s a ritual.”

However, Hannigan also declares: “I don’t think I’ve ever been calmer than during a world premiere in my life.” That’s the statement coming from someone who has premiered nearly 100 works. Especially since Bowler’s score requires what she calls “all the things I’ve been able to manage in the last 10 years that I couldn’t have done earlier in my career.” From the first orchestra rehearsal, Hannigan insists, “I was very calm. Because what Laura Lee wrote fit like a glove.”

The two were introduced by opera director Katie Mitchell at Bowler’s request. “Katie never introduced me to anyone other than you,” Hannigan says. Buller was surprised. “Who might ask, she’s never had any other matches.” However, even at playback, Hannigan only listened to 30 seconds of Bowler’s music. “I don’t like to assume anything about a composer who writes anything as he wrote it before,” she explains. “It was just a gut feeling.”

That wasn’t Hannigan’s only instinct about the white paper. Once the three orchestras were in place for the commission, I realized that this was not a “singing/conducting piece. It was clearly a singing piece.” These designations are vital distinctions for one of the most dynamic multitasking in classical music and a rare example of a conductor simultaneously assuming the solo vocal role in particular works. Instead, Hannigan brought in her student Bar Avni to conduct the Tri-Cities white paper, while Hannigan leads the work after the break. “It must be difficult for someone I have mentored,” she admits. “I kept reassuring her: When I’m bossy in training, it’s not because I instructed you. It’s because I’m bossy with everyone.”

In August 2026, Hannigan became Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, alongside her current positions with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, the LSO, and the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra. I quickly corrected my assumptions that she must mean she sings less. “I also sing a lot. In fact, I sing more now than I did five years ago. My voice is better now. I know my instrument well, I know how to handle it and how to rhythm it. I wish more singers would sing longer.”

True – but how do you fit it all in? “I have to surrender to the things I can do and the things I can’t change. I know I need a certain amount of sleep. I also know that adrenaline is the most powerful drug. Do I feel like I’m 100% prepared for everything? No, but I don’t think any musician or bandleader ever does.”

Buller herself often performs her own works but was a member of the White Book audience. “I found it very disorienting, but in a really beautiful way,” she smiles. “When you’re performing, the adrenaline runs through the performance. But when you’re sitting there in the audience, it just stays.”

Was writing the piece cathartic for Bowler while she was grieving? “She brought me an element of peace that my mother would have loved. She came to everything and was incredibly supportive. Since her death, I have found it very difficult to find joy when my work is shown for the first time. But there is something about this piece – it just seems to be there.”