Songs for Murdered Sisters • Program Note
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 of a crime now recognized as one of the worst domestic violence cases 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.
The result is a set of 8 songs, collectively titled Songs for Murdered Sisters, which have now been released as both a film and a digital album. In partnership with co-commissioner Houston Grand Opera, the chamber version premiered in March 2022 at Rothko Chapel in Houston. The orchestral version will receive its live world premiere with co-commissioner the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Ontario, in 2023.
A film by James Niebuhr was streamed on Houston Grand Opera's website via Marquee TV in February & March of 2021. The recording from Pentatone was released March 5, 2021 in time for International Women's Day.