Isabel Bayrakdarian

Isabel Bayrakdarian is a world-renowned Armenian-Canadian soprano. Her first recording, titled “Joyous Light”, was released in March 2002 and rose to No. 1 in the Canadian classical charts. Soon afterwards, her vocals were featured in Atom Egoyan’s film Ararat, and in the movie The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

Isabel's second CD, titled “Azulao” (Bluebird), won the prize of “Classical Album of the Year: Vocal or Choral Performance” at the Juno Awards, Canada’s most prestigious music awards. She released an acclaimed CD featuring arias from various operas (including Handel's Giulio Cesare and arias by Carl Heinrich Graun, Johann Adolf Hasse and Johann Mattheson) sung by the character Cleopatra which was also called Cleopatra.

[edit] Biography

Born in Lebanon in 1974, she moved to Canada as a teenager. Isabel graduated in 1997 from the University of Toronto with an honours B.A.Sc. in Engineering Science. In 2004 the singer married pianist Serouj Kradjian.

Bayrakdarian helped raise money for an organ for Convocation Hall at her alma mater University of Toronto by giving a benefit concert along with her husband Serouj Kradjian. She sang the engineers fight song as one of her encores.
She has won three Juno awards for Classical Album of the Year: Vocal or Choral Performance in a row (2003-2006).
She has just released a new album with fellow Canadians Russell Braun and Michael Schade featuring arias and duets composed by Mozart.