ArmenPress
April 19 2004
PRESIDENT WELCOMES FAMOUS CANADIAN ARMENIAN SOPRANO
YEREVAN, APRIL 19, ARMENPRESS: Armenian president Robert Kocharian
welcomed today a world-famous Canadian Armenian singer Isabel
Bayrakdarian, described by critics as “the glamorous and glamorously
gifted soprano.”
Isabel Bayrakdarian visits Armenia for the first time. She shared
her impressions with the president saying she was delighted and
promising to come again and again. She said she was enchanted with
the rich cultural life of Armenia and the high professionalism of
Armenian musicians. In Yerevan she will perform one concert.
First prize winner of the prestigious Placido Domingo “Operalia”
Competition in 2000 and a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Golden
Jubilee medal, Canadian Armenian soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian made an
impressive series of appearances in the 2002/2003 season, including
debuts at the Paris Opera (Bastille) as Susanna in Le Nozze di
Figaro, as Catherine in A View from the Bridge at the Metropolitan
Opera, Zerlina in Don Giovanni at the Salzburg Festival, Elisa in Il
Re Pastore at Brussels’s Theatre de la Monnaie, and Clorinda in Il
Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda at Los Angeles Opera. Her
numerous concerts and recital appearances took her to New York,
Berkeley, Costa Mesa, Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver, Edmonton,
Winnipeg, and Cyprus.
Miss Bayrakdarian can be heard on the Grammy Award winning
soundtrack of the blockbuster movie The Two Towers, the second
installment in The Lord of The Rings trilogy, as well as the multiple
award-winning Canadian movie Ararat. When Miss Bayrakdarian’s debut
recording “Joyous Light” was released in March 2002 on the CBC label,
it went straight to No. 1 in the classical charts across Canada.
Miss Bayrakdarian has been the recipient of many grants, including
a Canada Council Grant, the Sullivan Foundation Grant, the 2000
Leonie Rysanek Award from the George London Foundation, and the
Metropolitan Opera National Council Award in 1997.