2008/09 Concert Season
8PM, Cabell Hall Auditorium, University of Virginia
| October 28, 2008 |
ISABEL BAYRAKDARIAN, soprano, with SEROUJ KRADJIAN, piano |
Principal Underwriter: Old Virginia Brick
Program
| Schubert | Fruhlingsglaube, Sel mir gegrüst, Nacht und Träume, Seligkeit, An die Musik |
| Bellini | Composizioni da Camera |
| Viardot | Madrid, Sylvie, L’Enfant et la Mere, Moriro, Desespoir, Aime-moi (Chopin Mazurka) |
| Gomidas | 5 Armenian Folk Songs |
| Ravel | 6 Popular Greek Folk Songs |
| Obradors | 5 Spanish Folk Songs |
“A soprano voice that combines lyricism with remarkable dramatic instincts” Time Magazine
Artist Biographies
Isabel Bayrakdarian burst onto the international opera scene after winning first prize in the 2000 Operalia competition founded by Plácido Domingo. Since then she has performed in many of the world’s major opera houses, most recently endearing herself to London’s audiences in her Royal Opera House debut as Susanna in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro. The young Armenian-Canadian is admired as much for her stunning stage presence as for her exceptional musicality, and she has followed a career path completely her own. Her most famous roles are in Mozart operas, which have kept her very busy during the composer’s 250th birthday year. Susanna, Zerlina in Don Giovanni and Pamina in The Magic Flute have been her calling cards, along with Marzelline in Fidelio, Adina in L’elisir d’amore and Rosina in The Barber of Seville. But these are only a few of the roles in her rocketing career. Ms. Bayrakdarian sang Euridice in Gluck’s Orfeo to signature success at Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Cleopatra (Giulio Cesare), Romilda (Xerxes), and Emilia (Flavio) demonstrate her tremendous skills as a Handelian.
Juno award winning Armenian-Canadian pianist Serouj Kradjian has been described as “a keyboard acrobat” of “crystal virtuosity”, having “fiery temperament and elegant sound” with “a technique to burn.”
Mr. Kradjian has appeared with the Vancouver and Edmonton Symphonies, Madrid Symphony, Göttingen Symphony, Russian National Orchestra, the Armenian Philharmonic and the Thailand Philharmonic under the baton of such eminent conductors as Bramwell Tovey, Stéphane Denève, Gudni Emilsson and Raffi Armenian.
Solo and chamber music recitals have taken Mr. Kradjian from such Canadian cities as Toronto (Roy Thomson Hall and Toronto Centre for the Arts), Montreal, Quebec City, Ottawa, Vancouver (Orpheum Theatre), and Edmonton (Winspear Centre), via the U.S – New York (Carnegie Hall), Atlanta (Spivey Hall), Miami, Chicago (Cultural Center) and Los Angeles – to European concert halls in Paris, Düsseldorf, Hanover, Munich, Salzburg, Trondheim, Lausanne, Geneva, Nicosia, Madrid, Barcelona and Bilbao and to the Far East in Bangkok,Thailand and Tokyo,Japan.. He has been invited to prestigious festivals, amongst them, the Bergen Festival, Savannah Music Festival, Colmar Festival and the Festival Del Sole- Tuscan Sun Festival in Cortona, Italy.
Serouj Kradjian’s discography includes the highly acclaimed traversals of Franz Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes and Piano Concerti on the Warner Music Spain label, “Miniatures”, an anthology of music written by Armenian composers, and Robert Schumann’s three Sonatas for Violin and Piano (with Ara Malikian) are both Hänssler Classic releases. In 2002, he began working with soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian and their disc of songs by Pauline Viardot-Garcia was released in 2005, bringing the two artists, who are a married couple, international accolades and a 2006 Juno Award for Classical Album of the Year.
His concerts have been broadcast by the CBC, Radio de la Suisse Romande, Radio and TV España, the BBC, the Süddeutsche Rundfunk and NHK Japan.
Works composed or arranged by Serouj Kradjian have been performed by I Musici Montreal, the Vancouver Symphony and the Elmer Iseler Singers. He has especially enjoyed exploring and performing tango music which led to the critically acclaimed disc “Tango Notturno” on CBC Records. His orchestral arrangements of folk songs by Gomidas – Armenia’s national composer – were recently recorded and will be released in 2008. Kradjian was also founder and music director of Camerata Creativa in Madrid, Spain, a chamber orchestra dedicated to the performance of contemporary works.
Serouj Kradjian began his studies at the age of five, and by seven had won a National Competition for Young Musicians. At fourteen he earned a scholarship to study in Vienna, and later studied with Marietta Orlov at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music, where he earned a B.A. in Piano Performance in 1994. He studied with Einar Steen-Nökleberg at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hanover, receiving the coveted Solo Performance degree in 2001.
Mr. Kradjian’s talent has been acknowledged by the Chalmers Grant of the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council
In the 2008/09 season Mr. Kradjian will become the pianist of the Amici Chamber Ensemble.