Bayrakdarian set for a Toronto homecoming with ‘Ancestral songs, prayers, and lullabies’ at Koerner Hall
The acclaimed soprano returns Nov. 22 with a program of sacred music, Komitas works, and Armenian playsongs brought to life with visuals by artist Kevork Mourad.
TORONTOYE—When acclaimed soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian returns to Toronto on Nov. 22 to perform ‘Ancestral songs, prayers, and lullabies’ at Koerner Hall, the evening will carry a significance that goes beyond the standard concert experience. For her, stepping onto that stage in this city connects her earliest musical foundations with the work she continues to shape today as an Armenian artist on the international stage.
Photo courtesy of Isabel Bayrakdarian
Before Bayrakdarian’s voice was heard in opera houses from Salzburg to San Francisco, before she was featured in the Grammy Award-winning soundtrack of ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers,’ before the The JUNO Awards and the academic work, there was Toronto: her conservatory training, her first voice lessons, and her formative experiences within the Armenian community here.
“Toronto is indeed a very special place as my metamorphosis as an artist took place there,” Bayrakdarian told Torontohye. “Whenever I sing in Toronto, and particularly at the Koerner Hall and RCM where I began my first voice lessons back in 1993, I feel an incredible and overflowing sense of love and gratitude.”
She also spent part of her early years in Toronto singing in the choir of St. Mary Armenian Apostolic Church, strengthening her first musical ties within the local Armenian community and grounding her earliest experiences in Armenian liturgical song. That personal history has never faded from her memory. “From the stage, I physically feel the love coming to me from my audience, most of whom have been on my journey since my teenage days, so it feels like the entire city is my family who is rooting for me. In turn, on the wings of the song, I send blessings to everyone in my audience, and their loved ones.”
The upcoming program reflects years of artistic focus on Armenian repertoire, memory, and cultural preservation. ‘Ancestral songs, prayers, and lullabies’ brings together sacred music, works by Komitas, and traditional playsongs and lullabies preserved through his students Parsegh Ganatchian and Mihran Tumajan. Bayrakdarian describes the structure of the evening as deliberate, beginning with sacred Armenian music—the oldest layer of the program—and moving into material rooted in community and family life.
“The profound sacred music has sustained all Armenians’ faith, identity, and language for two thousand years. I have no doubt that the listener’s DNA will recognize this music and be moved and soothed by it,” she said. The Komitas segment, she added, will speak to Armenians whether their families came through historic Western Armenia, the Middle East, the Republic of Armenia, or anywhere across the diaspora. “These playsongs and lullabies were sung by our grandmothers and grandfathers when they were mischievous children, in faraway lands that no longer exist. All those who perished, and all the children whose voices were silenced prematurely because of their Armenian ethnicity and Christian religion, will come alive again through the songs that sustained them and brought them joy and comfort in their living years.”
For many in the Toronto Armenian community, this music is intergenerational. It has travelled through upheaval, displacement, immigration, resettlement, and now cultural renewal. The fact that it will be presented on a major Canadian stage with Armenian content at the forefront is not lost on Bayrakdarian, especially when she compares today’s atmosphere to the arts world she entered in the 1990s.
“The world today is very different than when I started out. It is more interconnected, inclusive, and curious. To be able to curate and present a concert of ancestral songs, most of which are obscure material and in the Armenian language, was something unfathomable 30 years ago,” she said. “I believe the field is wide open now for artists of any background to present projects that offer a personal perspective and a unique story with an authentic voice.”
A major creative element of the concert will be the on-stage collaboration with Kevork Mourad, the Syrian-Armenian visual artist whose live drawings will unfold in real time. Mourad, who has performed at the Aga Khan Museum, Carnegie Hall, the The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Walt Disney Concert Hall, and with Yo-Yo Ma’s Silkroad Ensemble, approaches storytelling through imagery. His presence will anchor the evening's visual dimension.
Bayrakdarian, who also serves as Director of Opera Theatre and Opera Outreach at the UC Santa Barbarahas devoted much of her work to audience education through performance. “My goal for this project was always to make it an educational experience for the audience, a chance for them to learn more about Armenian history, our lost music, our endangered languages—Grabar (Classical Armenian) and Western Armenian—and our art. Since we humans learn through our senses, what better way to enhance that learning experience than by engaging our two senses: the ears and the eyes.”
She was drawn to Mourad’s approach long before this collaboration took shape. “He is a brilliant storyteller through his art, and I am thrilled to be working with him. We share the experience of being Armenian Diaspora artists, grandchildren of Genocide survivors, born and raised in the Middle East, and now building our lives and careers in North America. That experience is familiar to Armenians everywhere.”
The evening will begin with a 7 p.m. prelude recital by Royal Conservatory students, followed by the main performance at 8 p.m. Bayrakdarian supports the decision to include young musicians in the program, especially on a night grounded in cultural continuity. For her, early opportunities in Toronto opened doors that later led to international stages; seeing young performers start on the same platform feels fitting.
Koerner Hall, which has hosted Bayrakdarian in earlier phases of her career, will again serve as the setting—a hall known for its acoustics, its audience, and its location at the heart of the city’s cultural corridor. For many Armenian Torontonians, it will also offer something specific: the chance to hear treasured repertoire in a major venue, presented by an artist who grew up in their midst and never lost her connection to the community that helped raise her.
Tickets are available through the Royal Conservatory box office for the Nov. 22 performance of ‘Ancestral songs, prayers, and lullabies,’ featuring Isabel Bayrakdarian with live visual art by Kevork Mourad. The prelude recital begins at 7 p.m. and the concert begins at 8 p.m. ֎
This article was published in Torontohye's Nov. 2025 (#219) issue.
