Philadelphia Public Radio

Philadelphia Orchestra to premiere ‘Songs for Murdered Sisters’
January 2024

The Philadelphia Orchestra is giving the American premiere of the fully orchestrated song cycle “Songs for Murdered Sisters,” born out of one of Canada’s most harrowing incidents of domestic violence. On Sept. 22, 2015, Basil Borutski embarked on a shocking murder spree in Renfrew County, Ontario, killing three former girlfriends. The tragedy, considered the worst case of domestic violence in Canada, ended with Borutski serving a life sentence. The murdered were Anastasia Kuzyk, Carol Culleton and Nathalie Warmerdam, who is the sister of baritone Joshua Hopkins. Moved by grief, Hopkins and his wife, mezzo singer Zoe Tarshis, set out to create a set of art songs to address these killings and intimate partner violence globally.

“Songs for Murdered Sisters,” by writer Margaret Atwood and composer Jake Heggie, premiered in 2022 as an eight-song cycle for voice and piano. It was commissioned by the Houston Grand Opera and the National Art Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Ontario, where the full orchestra version premiered in 2023.

Conductor Yannick Zezet Seguin will lead the Philadelphia Orchestra in the American premiere of the fully orchestrated version on a program with Mahler’s 9th Symphony, with two performances at Marion Anderson Hall in Philadelphia and a third at Carnegie Hall in New York City.