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The Kingston Whig-Standard, Ontario
Oct 8 2011
Armenian delight
By Greg Burliuk
>From the Paris opera to singing an eerie soundtrack on Lord of the
Rings, Isabel Bayrakdarian has done it all. Now Kingston audiences
will get to see another side of the four-time Juno Award winner.
She will perform folk songs from her native Armenia as well as from
the tango when she appears with the Amici Chamber Ensemble on Sunday
at Grant Hall as the opener for the Queen's Performing Arts Office
series. The Amicis are acclaimed, having also won a Juno. The trio's
pianist, Serouj Kradjian, is married to the singer.
"This concert is an integral part of who I am," says Bayrakdarian, who
lives in Toronto. "My interests are varied but this concert represents
an extension of who I am and what I love to sing. Usually people are
used to hearing me sing opera or classical music in concert.
"I have a strong sense of possessiveness about these folk songs. I
feel very free in how I colour the words and with my interpretation of
them."
In the first half of the concert, the singer will perform folk songs
collected by the Armenian composer Father Gomidas. "Some of the songs
I have sung since I was a child and others I have just learned," says
Bayrakdarian. "Gomidas collected the songs from different villages and
distilled them in classical arrangements. So many of the songs were
lost during the Armenian genocide (which began in 1915 and is said to
have resulted in the deaths of more than a million people).
"One of my favourites is the song Dear Maral, which is one of the more
recent ones I have learned. It's a story of love lost."
The Amicis have also investigated Armenian music. Their most recent
CD, Armenian Chamber Music, was nominated for a 2011 Juno. At the
concert, the group (whose other members are clarinetist Joaquin
Valdepenas and cellist David Heatherington) will perform three
selections from that CD. One of them is called Elegy for Restive Souls
and was composed by Kradjian. "It was written in 2008 to commemorate
the Armenian earthquake which decimated most of Northern Armenia,"
says Kradjian. "I was a kid growing up in Canada and I remember this
one picture of a clock in the middle of a destroyed town. It had
stopped at exactly 11:43, which was when the earthquake hit.
"I went back there many years later and there were still traces of it
and still homeless people after 20 years. The 17 minutes of the
composition is a description of the chaos and sadness and struggle of
that time but it ends on a note of rebirth."
The two other pieces to be performed by the Ensemble are Arno
Babadjanian's Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano, and Alexander
Arutiunian's Suite for Clarinet, Violin and Piano. The latter is still
an active composer at the age of 92.
When asked to characterize Armenian music, Kradjian said, "Armenia is
at the crossroads of Asia and Europe so it has rhythmic and melodic
structure from both. It also borrows from Armenian folk music. In my
piece, I used elements of liturgical music, which is also heavily
present."
The concert will end with two pieces of tango music performed by
singer and ensemble. The works are Carlos Gardel's El Dia Que Me
Quieras and Kurt Weil's Youkali. "I lived in Spain for a few years so
that's where I came to love the tangos," says Bayrakdarian. "They are
the people's expression. I love the way they express raw human
emotions. They are sungs that are meant to be sung and enjoyed by all
people."
One of the singer's more unusual assignments was learning to sing in
Elfish as part of the soundtrack for the Lord of the Rings: Two
Towers. "After I made my debut at the Paris Opera, I had four days off
and I went to the Abbey Road Studio in London where the Beatles
recorded," she says. "I got to see still unedited clips of footage
because we had to match the voice to the footage.
"They wanted a very ethereal sound that could be made by a woman or a
boy. It was other worldly but it was a lot of fun to do."
http://www.thewhig.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3327866
Oct 8 2011
Armenian delight
By Greg Burliuk
>From the Paris opera to singing an eerie soundtrack on Lord of the
Rings, Isabel Bayrakdarian has done it all. Now Kingston audiences
will get to see another side of the four-time Juno Award winner.
She will perform folk songs from her native Armenia as well as from
the tango when she appears with the Amici Chamber Ensemble on Sunday
at Grant Hall as the opener for the Queen's Performing Arts Office
series. The Amicis are acclaimed, having also won a Juno. The trio's
pianist, Serouj Kradjian, is married to the singer.
"This concert is an integral part of who I am," says Bayrakdarian, who
lives in Toronto. "My interests are varied but this concert represents
an extension of who I am and what I love to sing. Usually people are
used to hearing me sing opera or classical music in concert.
"I have a strong sense of possessiveness about these folk songs. I
feel very free in how I colour the words and with my interpretation of
them."
In the first half of the concert, the singer will perform folk songs
collected by the Armenian composer Father Gomidas. "Some of the songs
I have sung since I was a child and others I have just learned," says
Bayrakdarian. "Gomidas collected the songs from different villages and
distilled them in classical arrangements. So many of the songs were
lost during the Armenian genocide (which began in 1915 and is said to
have resulted in the deaths of more than a million people).
"One of my favourites is the song Dear Maral, which is one of the more
recent ones I have learned. It's a story of love lost."
The Amicis have also investigated Armenian music. Their most recent
CD, Armenian Chamber Music, was nominated for a 2011 Juno. At the
concert, the group (whose other members are clarinetist Joaquin
Valdepenas and cellist David Heatherington) will perform three
selections from that CD. One of them is called Elegy for Restive Souls
and was composed by Kradjian. "It was written in 2008 to commemorate
the Armenian earthquake which decimated most of Northern Armenia,"
says Kradjian. "I was a kid growing up in Canada and I remember this
one picture of a clock in the middle of a destroyed town. It had
stopped at exactly 11:43, which was when the earthquake hit.
"I went back there many years later and there were still traces of it
and still homeless people after 20 years. The 17 minutes of the
composition is a description of the chaos and sadness and struggle of
that time but it ends on a note of rebirth."
The two other pieces to be performed by the Ensemble are Arno
Babadjanian's Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano, and Alexander
Arutiunian's Suite for Clarinet, Violin and Piano. The latter is still
an active composer at the age of 92.
When asked to characterize Armenian music, Kradjian said, "Armenia is
at the crossroads of Asia and Europe so it has rhythmic and melodic
structure from both. It also borrows from Armenian folk music. In my
piece, I used elements of liturgical music, which is also heavily
present."
The concert will end with two pieces of tango music performed by
singer and ensemble. The works are Carlos Gardel's El Dia Que Me
Quieras and Kurt Weil's Youkali. "I lived in Spain for a few years so
that's where I came to love the tangos," says Bayrakdarian. "They are
the people's expression. I love the way they express raw human
emotions. They are sungs that are meant to be sung and enjoyed by all
people."
One of the singer's more unusual assignments was learning to sing in
Elfish as part of the soundtrack for the Lord of the Rings: Two
Towers. "After I made my debut at the Paris Opera, I had four days off
and I went to the Abbey Road Studio in London where the Beatles
recorded," she says. "I got to see still unedited clips of footage
because we had to match the voice to the footage.
"They wanted a very ethereal sound that could be made by a woman or a
boy. It was other worldly but it was a lot of fun to do."
http://www.thewhig.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3327866