Isabel Bayrakdarian and Warren Jones
7:30 pm Friday, March 4, 2005

First prize winner of the prestigious Plácido Domingo "Operalia" Competition in 2000 and a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee medal, Canadian Armenian soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian made an impressive series of appearances in the 2002/2003 season, including debuts at the Paris Opera (Bastille) as Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, as Catherine in A View from the Bridge at the Metropolitan Opera, Zerlina in Don Giovanni at the Salzburg Festival, Elisa in Il Re Pastore at Brussel's Theatre de la Monnaie, and Clorinda in Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda at Los Angeles Opera. Her numerous concerts and recital appearances took her to New York, Berkeley, Costa Mesa, Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Cyprus.

Miss Bayrakdarian’s other recent North American performances have included Servilia in La Clemenza di Tito with Santa Fe Opera, Valencienne in The Merry Widow at the San Francisco Opera, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte with the Cincinnati Opera, and at the Lyric Opera of Chicago as Catherine in the World Premiere of William Bolcom's A View from the Bridge, as well as Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia. For the Canadian Opera Company, she has sung the roles of Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, and Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia.

Miss Bayrakdarian's past European performances have included her Italian debut at Milan's Teatro alla Scala in Bernstein's West Side Story, Romilda in Handel's Serse at the Opéra de Montpellier and the Dresden Semperoper, Cleopatra in Hasse's Marc'Antonio e Cleopatra at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, and Emilia in Handel's Flavio at the Badisches Staatstheater in Karlsruhe, Germany.

In addition to her recital work, Miss Bayrakdarian has an extensive concert repertoire. She opened the National Arts Centre's 2001/2002 season in a Gala concert with artists Yo Yo Ma and Pinchas Zuckerman. Her appearances also included Mahler 4th Symphony with the Pittsburgh Symphony conducted by Mariss Jansons, Messiah with Les Violons du Roy, and triumphant recitals in New York (Carnegie Hall), Boston, Vancouver, and Toronto.

Miss Bayrakdarian can be heard on the Grammy Award winning soundtrack of the blockbuster movie The Two Towers, the second installment in The Lord of The Rings trilogy, as well as the multiple award-winning Canadian movie Ararat. When Miss Bayrakdarian's debut recording Joyous Light was released in March 2002 on the CBC label, it went straight to No. 1 in the classical charts across Canada. She has also recorded Villa-Lobos' Bachianas Brasilieras No. 5 for CBC Television, for which she earned a Gemini nomination, Rachmaninov's Vocalise for Bravo Arts Television, and Canada's CTV Network featured her in a documentary. Her second recording with the CBC - a Spanish/South American disc called Azulão, was released in the fall of 2003.

Miss Bayrakdarian has been the recipient of many grants, including a Canada Council Grant, the Sullivan Foundation Grant, the 2000 Leonie Rysanek Award from the George London Foundation, and the Metropolitan Opera National Council Award in 1997.

During the 2003/2004 season, Ms. Bayrakdarian will return to Chicago Lyric Opera and Los Angeles Opera as Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, and to the Metropolitan Opera as Teresa in Benvenuto Cellini. She will make her San Diego Opera debut as Leila in Les Pêcheurs de Perles and will perform recitals and concerts in Toronto with Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Tafelmusik (which will be recorded for her 3rd CD with CBC Records), Vancouver, New York, Minnesota, Atlanta and San Francisco.

WARREN JONES

WARREN JONES frequently performs with many of today’s best-known artists, including Barbara Bonney, Ruth Ann Swenson, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Denyce Graves, Stephanie Blythe, Håkan Hagegård, Bo Skovhus, Samuel Ramey, James Morris, John Relyea, and Joseph Alessi. In the past he has partnered such great singers as Marilyn Horne, Kathleen Battle, Carol Vaness, Judith Blegen, Tatiana Troyanos and Martti Talvela. His collaborations have earned consistently high praise from many publications: The Boston Globe termed him “flawless” and “utterly ravishing”; The New York Times ,“exquisite”; and The San Francisco Chronicle said simply, “He is the single finest accompanist now working.”

Mr. Jones has been featured in an interview with Eugenia Zuckerman on “CBS Sunday Morning” in which his work as a performer and teacher was explored, and he has appeared on television across the United States with Luciano Pavarotti. He has often been a guest artist at Carnegie Hall and in Lincoln Center’s Great Performers Series, as well as the festivals of Tanglewood, Ravinia, and Caramoor. His international travels have taken him to recitals at the Salzburg Festival, Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, the Maggio Musicale Festival in Florence, the Teatro Fenice in Venice, Paris’ Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and Opéra Bastille, Wigmore Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Cultural Centre in Hong Kong and theatres throughout Scandinavia and Korea. Mr. Jones has been invited three times to the White House by American presidents to perform at concerts honoring the President of Russia, and Prime Ministers of Italy and Canada—and three times he has appeared at the U.S. Supreme Court as a specially invited performer for the Justices and their guests. As a guest at the Library of Congress, Mr. Jones has appeared with the Juilliard Quartet in performances of the Schumann Piano Quintet. He was featured in the United Nations memorial concert and tribute to Miss Audrey Hepburn, an event which was telecast worldwide following Miss Hepburn’s death.