Role: Performer

Pianist

Violinist.

Isabel Bayrakdarian is highly regarded for her opera performances, on stage and on record—particularly as Cleopatra in Handel’s Giulio Cesare and in Mozart works like Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute. Her voice, says Time, “combines lyricism with remarkable dramatic instincts,” and the Chicago Tribune praised her “full, gleaming soprano and fine musical intelligence.” Bayrakdarian made her Metropolitan Opera debut in William Bolcom’s A View from the Bridge.

Iakovos Kolanian was born in Greece in 1960, to an Armenian father and a Greek mother. At the age of 13, influenced by the musical currents of the time (pop, rock, as well as classical) he started his musical journey that eventually led him to the National Conservatory of Athens. There, he studied classical guitar with noted professors Evangelos Assimakopoulos and Lisa Zoe, and graduated in 1985 with the top award and a special honor for exceptional performance. Since that time, he has attended various special seminars and master classes in Greece and abroad, broadening his knowledge of the instrument from distinguished teachers such as Oscar Ghilia and Leo Brouwer.\

Tenor sax.