The Armenian Genocide Centennial Committee presents Grammy Award-nominated soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian in concert with her husband, pianist Serouj Kradjian, and the Henrik Karapetyan String Quartet in “My Songs, My Heritage” on March 7 at the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center in Dearborn, Mich.
Concert selections will include Armenian sacred hymns, folk songs, chamber music, and 20th-century songs, with English surtitles.
Grammy Award-nominated soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian
Bayrakdarian immigrated to Canada as a teen. She graduated from the University of Toronto cum laude with a degree in biomedical engineering science in 1997, the same year she was named winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions.
Her opera career, now in its second decade, makes her an eagerly anticipated artist at opera houses and concert halls worldwide. Celebrated for her multi-hued voice as well as her presence and style, Bayrakdarian’s career expands beyond opera.
She is a featured vocalist on the Grammy-award winning soundtrack of “Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers,” and topped Billboard charts as a guest soloist with the Canadian band Delerium on their 2007 Grammy-nominated dance remix “Angelicus.”
Bayrakdarian won four consecutive Juno Awards, presented to Canadian musical artists for outstanding achievement in the recording industry, from 2004-07, for classical album of the year, vocal or instrumental, for “Azulao,” “Cleopatra,” “Viardot-Garcia: Lieder Chansons Canzone Mazurkas,” and “Mozart: Arie e Duetti.”
Bayrakdarian received a Grammy nomination for the BBC-produced short film “HOLOCAUST: A Music Memorial Film from Auschwitz.” She was also the focus of a Canadian television Gemini-nominated film, “A Long Journey Home,” documenting her first trip to Armenia.
A century ago, 1.5 million Armenians were exterminated in the Armenian Genocide, planned by the leaders of the Ottoman Empire, in what is now Turkey. The genocide had two phases: the wholesale killing of able-bodied men through massacre and forced army labor, followed by the deportation of women, children, the elderly, and the infirm on death marches to the Syrian desert. Military escorts, driving the deportees forward, deprived them of food and water, and subjected them to periodic robbery, rape, and massacre.
The Armenian Genocide Centennial Committee of Metro Detroit, comprised of 15 of the area’s leading Armenian-American organizations, has organized commemorative events throughout 2015 to honor the genocide victims, demand recognition and reparations, and increase public awareness of all genocides. The March 7 concert begins at 7 p.m., at the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center, 15801 Michigan Ave., Dearborn. Tickets are $50, $35, and $25, and are available through the theater box office at (313) 943-2354; online at dearborntheater.com; or by contacting Centennial Committee members Leslie Balian at (248) 303-4690 or Shakeh Basmajian at (248) 981-6825.
For more information, visit armeniangenocidecentennialmi.com.
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