2025-26 Sidney N. Zubrow Memorial Lecture

From left to right: Coralie Grand (Projects Coordinator), Mark Mazower (SNF Director), Marie d'Origny (Paris Director), Barbara Hannigan (conductor and soprano), Nicholas Spice (writer), Sari Castro (Programming and Communications Coordinator)  and Alice Pittini (Projects Assistant).

On February 19, 2026, the Institute for Ideas and Imagination had the pleasure of welcoming acclaimed soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan to Reid Hall to deliver the fourth annual Sidney N. Zubrow Memorial Lecture. In the Grande Salle Ginsberg-LeClerc, Hannigan presented Resonance, Flow and Surrender in the Creative Process, offering an in-depth reflection on artistic collaboration and the creative journey behind new music for the operatic and concert stage.

Her presentation was followed by a discussion with Nicholas Spice, fiction writer, critic, and consulting publisher to the London Review of Books.

The Institute is deeply grateful to Edward, Betsy, and Daniel Cohen for making this lecture possible.

From left to right: Anna Stavychenko, Barbara Hannigan, Finola Merivale and Magdalena Stern-Baczewska.