Canadian-Armenian soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian will be performing a program titled Ancestral Songs, Prayers, and Lullabies at Toronto’s Koerner Hall on November 22. The music includes Marian chants as well as Armenian folk songs and lullabies.
She’ll be joined by Ellie Choate (harp), Rayo A Furuta (flute), and Mher Mnatsakanyan (duduk), with live drawing by Kevork Mourad. Mourad has performed with artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Kim Kashkashian, and the Los Angeles Master Chorale, among others.
It’s a program that has been years in the making, and a project that combines music, history, and cultural preservation.
From the collected songs by Mihran Toumajan (1890-1973), arr. John Hodian, with Video and Visual Art: Kevork Mourad, performed by Isabel Bayrakdarian, Soprano, Ellie Choate, Harp, Ruben Harutyunyan, Duduk:
Isabel Bayrakdarian: The Interview
The program for Bayrakdarian’s concert stems from her 2021 album Armenian Songs for Children.
“It is an extension of that project,” she says. The majority of the selections she’ll perform come from that album, and the research she did to assemble the material.
Along with lullabies and other children’s songs, Bayrakdarian introduces another element into the program. “Prefaced by sacred music, because that is the most authentic expression of that spiritual dimension,” she explains. “That spiritual dimension is gaining much more prominence in my life.”
Based now in California, where she is a Professor of Voice, Director of Opera Theatre, and Head of Voice Area in the Music Department at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB), the Canadian-Armenian vocalist is looking forward to returning to Toronto.
“It would be the best way to say hello to my Toronto family,” she says. “It’s my way of saying hello with a blessing. I’m so full of gratitude for my roots in Toronto.”
She credits her musical background in Canada and its Toronto connections with preparing her for what has become a prominent international career. “It’s a very, very special place for me.”
The Concert Program
Assembling the material for Armenian Songs for Children involved years of research.
“It starts with a group of prayers and chants,” Bayrakdarian explains, “and then moves specifically to the play songs and lullabies from different regions.”
That includes works by Armenian priest and musicologist Komitas Vartabed. “The father of Armenian music and his students,” Isabel says. Now that she’s a teacher herself, she has a new understanding of his role.
“I’m at that stage where I’m so proud of my students, but I’m curious — what is it from me that they’re taking?”
Likewise, she includes the music of Komitas’ students Parsegh Ganachian and Mihran Toumajan. “What did they take from their master?”
Yeraz/Dream Երազ/Ես լսեցի մի անուշ ձայն by Komitas, performed by Isabel Bayrakdarian, Soprano, Ellie Choate, Harp, Ray Furuta, Flute, Arranged by Artur Avanesov, with Video Visual Art by Kevork Mourad:
An Interrupted History
Before WWI, the Christian Armenian people lived within what was then known as the Ottoman Empire, a large area that includes what is now much of Southeast Europe, Western Asia, and North Africa. The Empire lasted from the 14th century until the early 20th century, and became a major world power centred in Constantinople (modern day Istanbul), which was founded in 1453.
Officially an Islamic Caliphate, the large territory incorporated many different ethnic groups, many of whom were Christian and Jewish.
Already in significant decline by the early 20th century, during WWI, the ruling party, fearing that Armenians would declare independence, began a systematic program of persecution and genocide that included deportation to the Syrian Desert and forced conversion to Islam.
About 1 million Armenians died from what became death marches — forced to relocate to Syria, and denied food and water along the way. Aid organizations were prohibited from helping them, and paramilitary groups also massacred many in various regions.
As a result, the history and culture of Armenia is an interrupted and often fragmented history.
The material comes from various sources, and what Isabel discovered often presented different versions of the same song. One source was a survivor of the Armenian genocide, later living in San Francisco, who offered their remembrances decades later. Other songs and music were collected before the genocide.
“You compare and contrast. I just wanted to add the teacher and what inspired the teacher himself.”
Komitas, as she points out, played an enormous role in the development and arrangement of Armenian sacred music. He composed a mass that is still sung in Armenian churches.
“It’s brilliant,” she says. “We are now the students of his students.”
Bayrakdarian worked with various collaborators on the project. “I have three different arrangers for this project.” One, she explains, stays true to the original spirit of Komitas’ music. Composer John Hodian is another, and his arrangements are more modern in approach. “It’s a very different arrangement. Basically it’s 21st century. We are a pastiche, a quilt of so many influences together, but the message of our identities still passes through.”
Taking The Program On The Road
She’ll be performing the same program in Carnegie Hall and at the Scottish Rite Museum and Library in Lexington (Boston) before hitting Toronto.
“I’m very excited by this program. I get to repeat it in two other places,” she says. “It’s wonderful to be able to take this repertoire on the road.”
The concerts and tour was originally scheduled to commence just after the album release, but got sidelined by the COVID pandemic. She was determined, however, to bring it to the stage.
“Some things just need to be heard,” Isabel says. “I didn’t just do this as my personal pet project. It’s a mission,” she continues. “It has to serve a higher good — preserving the fragmented past. It is a fragmented past.”
Her role at home as a mother also played into the project. “I’m raising children, and I know how important it is to talk to them about the past.”
Gakavig/Song of the Partridge/Կաքաւի Երգը by Gomidas, performed by Isabel Bayrakdarian, Soprano, Ellie Choate, Harp, Pay Furuta, Flute, arranged by Artur Avanesov, with Video Visual Art by Kevork Mourad:
Universality
While it represents a distinctly Armenian flavour, the music sung to children is recognizable in its character, which is remarkably similar across global cultures.
“[It’s] realizing at the same time that we’re all the same,” she explains. “So this commonality of human experience, those surroundings could be very, very different, but at the core, we are the same human beings, having the same experience.”
The difference is the urgency of preserving music and traditions that are rapidly being forgotten. “These songs are on the verge of extinction. Nobody’s singing them anymore,” she says. “But they’re charming.”
One of the pieces she was sent during the research phase came from a region outside Armenia, but immediately struck a chord.
“I had to stop and say, I know this! I grew up singing it in Kindergarten,” she says, “but nobody knows its roots.” Sometimes, she was able to piece together the missing context. “Putting a location on a map to the songs.”
Bayrakdarian was born in Zahlé, Lebanon, where her Armenian family lived before coming to Canada when she was a teenager.
“Some songs were written in the diaspora in Lebanon,” she explains. “When I sing them now, it’s images of happiness.” That feeling persists, despite the fact that she grew up during the Lebanese Civil War. “But, when I hear this music, it’s spring time, it’s happiness. It has a way of comforting, a way of soothing.”
She sang those same lullabies and songs to her own children. It’s her hope that others will too. “I specifically did this project in a key that’s singable. Just sing it to keep it alive.”
It’s a link to the past, and an act of resistance.
“That reinforces you, that makes you stand to claim your spot on this earth, and not apologize for it. Because you weren’t supposed to live,” she says. “It’s meaningful for me on many, many levels. Cultural preservation is, but more than anything, the continuation of tradition.”
She recognizes that songs have the power to convey that tradition in a greater capacity than words alone. “Songs with words are basically two messengers.” It takes more brain processing power to learn both. “Therefore it has more potential to wake up memories,” she adds.
A Journey Into The Past
Her research and journey into the roots of Armenian culture began when she truly realized how much was lost.
“It was many years ago,” she recalls. “I realized it the day when my nephews and nieces were listening to some not so good Armenian lullabies.”
It came in contrast to the songs she was singing to her own children. She realized that there was no way for others, however, to access what she remembered. Songs are much more than songs. “They are the reservoirs of so much more.”
The songs she heard her relatives singing were simplistic and electronically generated, and not of the same quality as those held in her memories. “Children need to have deep rich and complex material, not simplified versions,” she says. “That’s how it all started. Then it became a much larger [idea].”
She wondered what other new generations of Armenians were listening to. Her own son would easily fall asleep when she sang to him. “The whole motherhood/teacher converged in this project.
This was born […] ultimately, especially, by honouring places that no longer existed. It was a way to honour my own ancestors.”
Isabel notes she was named after her grandmother, a survivor of the Genocide. “It was a way for me to honour her and her journey of survival, and just to give voice to the silenced voices. I wasn’t able to find music from her exact place of birth,” she adds. “But I’m sure with more research I will be able to dig something up.”
The source material includes full songs that had been transcribed, as well as segments and excerpts, some that were only three or six bars long, others without words.
“I cannot put these back into obscurity. I just can’t. I have to put them to life with authenticity.”
Some excerpts became part of a medley of songs in the same keys. “So that they are alive again.”
Sleep My Child Lullaby/Քուն Եղիր Պալաս, performed by Isabel Bayrakdarian, Soprano Ellie Choate, Harp, with Visuals and Video by Kevork Mourad:
A Passion Project
“It’s a passion project. I can’t wait.”
Audiences can expect entertainment, education, and discovery. Those who grew up Armenian will likely recognize the Komitas pieces. But, you don’t have to be part of that background to enjoy the music.
“On an elemental level, all lullabies speak to the soul,” she says. “They resonate with your soul.”
Song is one of the first ways we communicate with children on an elemental level. “Breath is expressing itself. It is expressing something old, timeless, and going into the air as a sound wave, and coming to your soul.”
The music connects no matter what your age.
“Lulabies are always soothing,” she says. “They bring you in a much more aware state.”
Bayrakdarian is currently training to use music in healing practices. “I truly believe in using […] the vibrations to get to a higher state,” she says. “Music can help us.”
The Concert
Audience members who arrive early will be treated to a performance by students of The Royal Conservatory from 7 p.m.
- Find other concert details and tickets for her Koerner Hall performance [HERE].
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