From the Met to Middle Earth
December 15, 2005
Ottawa Citizen
Steven Mazey, The Ottawa Citizen
In the four years since Toronto soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian last performed in Ottawa, she has become a regular at the Metropolitan Opera, she recorded a Mahler symphony with the San Francisco Symphony, and in a gig that brought her silvery voice to the ears of millions, she found herself singing in Elvish for the soundtrack of a little movie called Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
Fans of the movie heard Bayrakdarian in the haunting song Evenstar on the film and on its soundtrack CD.
[...]
Bayrakdarian, who was born in Armenia and moved to Toronto as a teenager, performs a Christmas recital Saturday at Ottawa's Christ Church Cathedral with pianist Serouj Kradjian.
[...]
Praised in Time magazine for "a soprano voice that combines lyricism with remarkable dramatic instincts," she has excelled in ingenue roles in Mozart's Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro, as Rosina in The Barber of Seville and in baroque opera. Later this season, she will star with countertenor David Daniels in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice in Chicago.
Ottawa fans of Bayrakdarian can hear her in two performances this season. In addition to Saturday's recital with the concert pianist who happens to be her husband, Bayrakdarian will return in May to sing Mozart arias with the NAC Orchestra under conductor Pinchas Zukerman. It will be her first NAC performance since 2001, when she sang as part of the NACO fundraising gala that featured cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
[...]
For now, though, her attention is on the recital she and Kradjian will present at Christ Church Cathedral, featuring a generous program of mostly Christmas-related music. Kradjian, who performs internationally, will perform some solo Bach pieces.
Bayrakdarian will perform Mozart's Exsultate, jubilate, arias from Handel's Messiah, American composer Samuel Barber's Hermit Songs, Schubert's Ave Maria and Christmas songs including Away in a Manger, Gesu Bambino and O Holy Night.
"Because it's so close to Christmas, I couldn't just do a regular recital program. I wanted to offer variety, because we're all sick of hearing 'Chestnuts roasting on an open fire,'" she laughs.
[...]
At Saturday's concert, the Canada Council for the Arts will also present Bayrakdarian with the annual $25,000 Virginia Parker Prize. The prize was established in 1982 by Virginia Parker Moore to assist young professional musicians under the age of 32 "who demonstrate outstanding talent and musicianship."
The prize is intended to help young artists with particular projects or studies. Previous winners have included pianist Jon Kimura Parker, tenor Michael Schade, violinist James Ehnes and contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux.
[...]
Bayrakdarian says she's honoured to receive it, and plans to use part of the Parker prize to commission a composer to arrange some traditional Armenian folk songs for a CD she wants to put together with a chamber orchestra. In a nice bit of timing, she was at an airport in Vienna last spring, about to travel to Armenia to research the project, when she found out that she had won the Parker prize.
"Recording and keeping these songs alive is my new passion, and the project is dear to my heart, but it's a huge undertaking to do all by oneself. You need help with a project like this. I'll use this money to give something back to another composer for this project. When the CD comes out, the Canada Council will be credited for this wonderful support."
At her Ottawa recital Saturday, Bayrakdarian will give audiences a little taste of the kind of music to be featured on the new CD, when she performs a song by the Armenian composer Gomidas, who died in 1935. "It's plaintive and haunting and is said to be the last piece he wrote," she says.
[...]
Isabel Bayrakdarian and Serouj Kradjian perform Saturday at Christ Church Cathedral, Sparks Street near Bronson Avenue. Tickets & times, 567-1787. She performs May 11 and 12 with the NAC Orchestra. Tickets & times, 755-1111.
Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.
Ottawa Citizen
Steven Mazey, The Ottawa Citizen
In the four years since Toronto soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian last performed in Ottawa, she has become a regular at the Metropolitan Opera, she recorded a Mahler symphony with the San Francisco Symphony, and in a gig that brought her silvery voice to the ears of millions, she found herself singing in Elvish for the soundtrack of a little movie called Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
Fans of the movie heard Bayrakdarian in the haunting song Evenstar on the film and on its soundtrack CD.
[...]
Bayrakdarian, who was born in Armenia and moved to Toronto as a teenager, performs a Christmas recital Saturday at Ottawa's Christ Church Cathedral with pianist Serouj Kradjian.
[...]
Praised in Time magazine for "a soprano voice that combines lyricism with remarkable dramatic instincts," she has excelled in ingenue roles in Mozart's Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro, as Rosina in The Barber of Seville and in baroque opera. Later this season, she will star with countertenor David Daniels in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice in Chicago.
Ottawa fans of Bayrakdarian can hear her in two performances this season. In addition to Saturday's recital with the concert pianist who happens to be her husband, Bayrakdarian will return in May to sing Mozart arias with the NAC Orchestra under conductor Pinchas Zukerman. It will be her first NAC performance since 2001, when she sang as part of the NACO fundraising gala that featured cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
[...]
For now, though, her attention is on the recital she and Kradjian will present at Christ Church Cathedral, featuring a generous program of mostly Christmas-related music. Kradjian, who performs internationally, will perform some solo Bach pieces.
Bayrakdarian will perform Mozart's Exsultate, jubilate, arias from Handel's Messiah, American composer Samuel Barber's Hermit Songs, Schubert's Ave Maria and Christmas songs including Away in a Manger, Gesu Bambino and O Holy Night.
"Because it's so close to Christmas, I couldn't just do a regular recital program. I wanted to offer variety, because we're all sick of hearing 'Chestnuts roasting on an open fire,'" she laughs.
[...]
At Saturday's concert, the Canada Council for the Arts will also present Bayrakdarian with the annual $25,000 Virginia Parker Prize. The prize was established in 1982 by Virginia Parker Moore to assist young professional musicians under the age of 32 "who demonstrate outstanding talent and musicianship."
The prize is intended to help young artists with particular projects or studies. Previous winners have included pianist Jon Kimura Parker, tenor Michael Schade, violinist James Ehnes and contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux.
[...]
Bayrakdarian says she's honoured to receive it, and plans to use part of the Parker prize to commission a composer to arrange some traditional Armenian folk songs for a CD she wants to put together with a chamber orchestra. In a nice bit of timing, she was at an airport in Vienna last spring, about to travel to Armenia to research the project, when she found out that she had won the Parker prize.
"Recording and keeping these songs alive is my new passion, and the project is dear to my heart, but it's a huge undertaking to do all by oneself. You need help with a project like this. I'll use this money to give something back to another composer for this project. When the CD comes out, the Canada Council will be credited for this wonderful support."
At her Ottawa recital Saturday, Bayrakdarian will give audiences a little taste of the kind of music to be featured on the new CD, when she performs a song by the Armenian composer Gomidas, who died in 1935. "It's plaintive and haunting and is said to be the last piece he wrote," she says.
[...]
Isabel Bayrakdarian and Serouj Kradjian perform Saturday at Christ Church Cathedral, Sparks Street near Bronson Avenue. Tickets & times, 567-1787. She performs May 11 and 12 with the NAC Orchestra. Tickets & times, 755-1111.
Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.
posted by Vahe Balabanian at 9:21 AM
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