Suzanne Hannau

1/29/19

I can’t believe the big concert is over! It was great - a whirlwind of colors and sounds and creative madness. In the past few years I have taken a bit of a break from performing so I could focus on teaching and managing a music school. I’ve missed it a lot, so I left my management position in order to be able to do more fun things like this show. It’s been terrifying to make that jump but I felt like it was now or never. So far I’m very happy with my choice.

Composer/flutist/vocal artist Janice Misurell-Mitchell and I put on a hell of a show. We opened the show with Masques pour deux flutes by Toru Takemitsu - it was a gentle introduction to the sonic insanity that was about to follow. Janice started up with her piece Profaning the Sacred II, which uses text from the beat poet Allen Ginsberg. My first solo piece, Lipstick by Dutch avant-garde composer JacobTV is for flute, alto flute, and electronics with performance video. Then Janice and John Corkill were on for Janice’s piece After the History, which was a commentary on war culture in our world (she specifically quotes war tunes from the USA, Great Britain, and Germany). After intermission I put my best friend to work and she made me look like a creepy clown for my performance of Pirouette on a Moon Sliver by Amy Beth Kirsten, which is an incredibly fun and creepy piece that delves into madness in a way I’ve never worked on before. I then had 8 minutes during Janice’s piece Karawane (for alto flute and electronics; she uses text from the poet Hugo Ball and overlaps it with Duke Ellington’s Caravan) to quick change out of that into a more normal face for my rendition of Luciano Berio’s Sequenza I, per flauto. We wrapped up the concert with a world premiere written by Jonathan Hannau - Song (for flute, alto flute, and pianos), which was a serene, introspective way to wrap up the performance.

Thank you to everyone who was able to make it out! For those of you who couldn’t, I’ll be sure to link the recordings up here when we get them.

1/15/19

Woof, websites are a lot of work! I’m happy to finally launch this into the world. I’m sure I’ll come up with a million other ideas and I’ll continue to improve this site, but this perfectionist is finally coming to terms with “good enough for now.”

I’ve decided that this little section will be about things that are happening in my life that may or may not be strictly music-related. I’m married to composer/pianist Jonathan Hannau and he’s pretty great. And I’m going to post a picture of my dogs because why not? … You’re welcome. Macy is the beagle mix and Hildy (Hildegard von Borken) is the boxer mix. They’re excellent “New Music” dogs in that they can sleep through any of the pieces we work on - from Rebecca Saunders and Amy Beth Kirsten to toy piano noise improvisations with guitar pedals and death whistles.

On Thursday, 1/17 I’ll be performing with flutist Janice Misurell-Mitchell, Jonathan Hannau, and John Corkill at the Chicago Cultural Center. We’re doing a promotional concert for our next big concert, 1/27 at Constellation. It’s been a lot of fun prepping the music for these concerts.

Thanks for checking out the site!

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