Armenian
News Network / Groong
Conversations on Groong: With Isabel Bayrakdarian
ANN/Groong
January 23, 2022
Guest
● Isabel Bayrakdarian
Hosts
● Bedros Afeyan
● Asbed Bedrossian
Introduction
Komitas - Sleep My Child - Lullaby – Timestamp:
00:00:00
In
this Conversations on Groong
episode, we’ll be talking about music, art, and all the things that make us
human beings and specifically, Armenians.
Our
guest host today is:
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Bedros Afeyan, who is a theoretical physicist who loves
music and often quotes Nietzsche who said, without (serious) music, life
would be a mistake.
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And our guest is
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Isabel Bayrakdarian who is a mother, singer, teacher, poet, artist, storyteller,
collaborator, believer… Not your average prima donna!
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This
episode was recorded on Sunday, January 23, 2022.
Conversation with Isabel
Bayrakdarian
Overview
Komitas - Six Children’s Songs – Timestamp:
00:01:35
Internationally acclaimed soprano, Lebanese-born,
Canadian-Armenian-American Isabel Bayrakdarian has released an album that draws
on five generations of her family - from her great-grandparents to her own
children.
Well, I was a child once where she was a child, 15 years
later, namely, Beirut, Lebanon. And we both sang as acolytes in the Armenian
Apostolic church - we sang the same mass, the same ancient hymns, wearing the
same robes and sliding around in the same hand-me-down slippers. Then we both
left Lebanon and settled in Canada, Montreal for me, Toronto for her, finished
high school and studied engineering in college. Many years apart mind you! And
now we are both living in sunny CA.
Somewhere in the middle of all that, of course, she became
a famous opera singer, and I did not. But we are both still very much Armenian,
passionately devoted to music, so I thought: what a wonderful opportunity to
talk and explore what makes her tick! How she came to choose music and singing
over biochemical engineering, how she views those decisions now, what are her
favorite genres of classical music? How she prepares? How she maintains her
voice? How she does the musical scholarship to unearth and dust off over a
hundred-year-old village songs, intonations, accents, traditional renditions,
resurrecting Agn, Ani, Bitlis, Diktanagerd, Bardizag, Bursa, Van, or Gesaria,
among many other ashes of the Armenian Genocide, as well as parenthood, being a
professor at UCSB, and in her spare time, a diva, a superstar, an award-winning
international recording artist.
Discussion
We
have met on a number of occasions in the past. I first learned about you from
my mother who was excited to hear that you were from Zahleh, when you won your
voice international competition and CBC was all over it. Your album Joyous
Light, 2002, made an indelible impression on me, and that reverberated in Atom
Egoyan’s film Ararat, which I reviewed
for Groong, 20 years ago now. I also remember the album and movie The Journey
Home.
(1) How did that journey back to Armenian music
happen? How did you manage learning classical music and training your operatic
voice while attending the prestigious University of Toronto, studying
engineering, of all subjects?
(2) Ganachian
- The Swallow – Timestamp: 00:27:03
How
would you characterize the differences between or the overall musical harmony
uniting Armenian music, whether it be traditional, village heritage based, or
Gomidas transcribed, vs the Western canon which you sing professionally, from
Italian Operas to German Lieder to South American Tango gems? That’s quite a
span!
(3) Gomidas
- Little Wooden Horse – Timestamp: 00:29:06
Let’s
talk about the new album: Armenian Songs for Children.
It
is ethnomusicology par excellence! Bartok or Gomidas (or Ravel or Dvorak) have
nothing on you! You have unearthed
Armenian musical and expressive gems lost to the cruelties of time and
conquerors past over a vast list landmass, Western Armenia. The songs of
village folk, resurrected in your hands and brought back to life like an
injured bird on a trembling windowsill on a cold winter morning, saved by you
to find flight and gently soar away.
Tumajan - Cradle Song - Lullaby from Putanya –
Timestamp: 00:41:57 & 00:45:00 & 00:46:42
Tell
us about your song choices, the hard work of mastering and rendering them so
beautifully accompanied with just a virtuoso harp and a virtuoso flute, by Ellie Choate and Ray Furata. Masterful simplicity and purity of sound,
if I may be so bold as to say!
Tumajan – The Scarecrow - Playsong from Kharpert
– Timestamp: 00:55:46
(4) Ganachian
– Peaceful Night – Timestamp: 00:56:12
What
are your musical ambitions? Not yet reached summits? Dreams?
Aspirations? Besides teaching the next generation which you are busy doing, of
course.
(5) Isabel, can you lead us through a typical day
for you, if such a thing can be described. Say you are back home, during the
semester, UCSB is open, and the children are in school, what is your day like?
And then when you are on the road and away from home. How do you prepare,
rehearse, choose your repertoire, expand it, do the groundwork before the
flashing lights of the stage and your powerful voice capture the rest of the
night in a blazing glory?
(6) Tumajan
- 2 Playsongs from Agn Region – Timestamp: 01:05:43
What
books have influenced you the most? What composers? What singers? What
musicians? What movie makers? What thinkers? Philosophers? Poets? Novelists?
Painters?
(7) Tumajan
- Orrim - Lullaby from Putanya – Timestamp: 01:10:50
I
know you write poetry yourself. Can you read something of yours here, on the
air, for your fans?
(8) You knew I was going to ask this. Can you also
sing one of the bird songs from your wonderful and enchanting album of Armenian
Songs for Children? My favorite incidentally, among 28 other masterpieces, is
the lament or sorrowful song full of chagrin: Serenade. Sing one for us, Isabel?
Thank you,
Isabel. The Armenian nation thanks you.
Ganachian - Serenade – Timestamp: 01:16:03
Ganachian - Bjingo – Timestamp: 01:17:11
Wrap-up
●
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Keywords
Isabel
Bayrakdarian, Bedros Afeyan, Ellie Choate, Ray Furuta, Soprano, Armenian Music,
Komitas, Gomidas, Parsegh Ganachian, Mihran Tumajan, Artur Avanesov, John
Hodian, UCSB, Beirut, Toronto, Montreal, California, Fresno, Classical Music,
Art, Canada, Heritage,