Isabel Bayrakdarian

Isabel Bayrakdarian (born 1974 in Zahlé, Lebanon) is a Grammy Award-nominated Armenian Canadian opera singer.
Born in Lebanon in 1974, she moved to Canada as a teenager. Bayrakdarian graduated in 1997 from the University of Toronto with an honours B.A.Sc. in Engineering Science.
Isabel Bayrakdarian is noted as much for her stage presence as for her musicality, and she has followed a unique career path. Since winning first prize at the 2000 Operalia International Opera Competition founded by Plácido Domingo, she has launched an international opera career, appearing at the Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House, La Scala, Opéra National de Paris, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Salzburg Festival, Dresden Semperoper, Bavarian State Opera, San Francisco Opera, Santa Fe Opera, and the Canadian Opera Company among others.
Her roles have included Euridice in Orfeo ed Euridice, Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare, Romilda in Serse, Emilia in Flavio, Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Pamina in The Magic Flute, Rosina in The Barber of Seville, Marzelline in Fidelio, Adina in L'elisir d'amore, Norina in Don Pasquale, Leila in Bizet's The Pearl Fishers, Teresa in Benvenuto Cellini, Mélisande in Pelléas et Mélisande, the Vixen in The Cunning Little Vixen, Blanche in Dialogues of the Carmelites and Catherine in A View from the Bridge.
Her concert schedule includes appearances with the Chicago, Montreal, Toronto, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco symphony orchestras, Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, and the National Arts Centre Orchestra, singing under the baton of such conductors as Seiji Ozawa, James Conlon, David Zinman, Michael Tilson Thomas, Christoph von Dohnányi, Christoph Eschenbach, Colin Davis, Andrew Davis, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Mariss Jansons, Leonard Slatkin, James Levine, Peter Oundjian and Richard Bradshaw.
Bayrakdarian is the subject of a film entitled A Long Journey Home[5] that documents her first trip to Armenia. A major North American tour by Bayrakdarian in October 2008 featured the music of Komitas Vardapet with concerts in Toronto, San Francisco, Orange County, Vancouver, Toronto, Boston and New York's Carnegie Hall. She was accompanied by the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra conducted by Anne Manson, and pianist Serouj Kradjian. This "Remembrance Tour" was dedicated to victims of all genocides and was sponsored by the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (a division of Zoryan Institute)