NEW YORK — Soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian will be presenting an innovative program at her upcoming concerts in New York City (November 13), Boston (November 15), and Toronto (Nov. 22).
Titled “Ancestral Songs, Prayers and Lullabies,” the collection of songs encompasses the tradition of an art form heralded by Komitas and continued by his students Parsegh Ganatchian and Mihran Toumajan. In an informal interview with Lisa Terrizzi of the Friends of Armenian Cultural Society, the presenter of the Boston performance, Byarakdarian offered some perspectives on her journey from a choir girl to an internationally renowned artist, and her keen interest and “mission” in discovering, probing and presenting Armenian musical gems.
In a way, this program is a return to her musical roots.
“My first love was, and continues to be, Armenian sacred music. Throughout my life, singing and discovering our beautiful and ancient hymns has been a path forward, path inward, and always a path upward for me, making for a uniquely personal journey. I grew up playing the piano and singing in our Armenian church choir in Lebanon. The only reason I wanted to take voice lessons in my late teens in Canada, was to be able to communicate freely with God through fearless singing that comes with a solid technique. I wanted to do justice to the beautiful melodies of our sharagans, without having the limitations of the body dictate my spiritual expression, hence the long legato that I had to develop early on in my technique,” she explained. “Classical Armenian (or Krapar) which is the language of our prayers, challenged me to work on my breath control to meet the demands of the prayers, where sometimes half a page of music (and many, many bars of music) are placed on a single word. The believer and the perfectionist in me couldn’t bring herself to interrupt a sacred word such as “Asdvadz”/God, or Surp/Holy to take a breath and break the energy of the word!”
It was not just music in which the young Isabel excelled in; she received her bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering (with honors) from the University of Toronto.
“I took singing lessons and kept singing in our church choir in Toronto during my undergrad years. The ‘aha’ moment for me came between my 2nd and 3rd year of engineering, when I took one year off to do an internship at IBM. That year gave me the time and resources to pursue my singing lessons more regularly, rigorously, and with more dedication, which of course meant that my vocal growth shot up to a completely new level. I was hooked and I wanted more! I must admit returning to my junior year of engineering was very difficult, because the passion wasn’t there anymore, and I couldn’t wait to finish my degree and jump into music-making,” she explained.
