Armenian-Canadian soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian's Nonesuch debut album, Gomidas Songs, has been nominated for a Juno Award for Classical Album of the Year: Vocal or Choral Performance. The Junos, Canada's music award, will be presented in a ceremony this Sunday in St. John's, Newfoundland, and will be broadcast on CTV.

Isabel Bayrakdarian will perform songs from her Nonesuch debut, Gomidas Songs, celebrating the work of composer Gomidas Vardabet, at Ohio's Baldwin-Wallace College, tomorrow night, to benefit the school's Art Song Festival. "The Lebanon-born Canadian soprano of Armenian heritage has proved herself on the international operatic and recital stage, where her lustrous voice and expressive urgency are winning increasing approbation," says the Cleveland Plain-Dealer. "I think these songs are in the psyche of all Armenians," Bayrakdarian says of the Gomidas works. "In many ways, when I sing them ... they come from a part of me that is very different from when I sing any other repertoire."

Gomidas Songs, Isabel Bayrakdarian's 2008 Nonesuch debut and a Grammy nominee for Best Classical Vocal Performance, rates a perfect five stars in a review in The Scotsman, which states that this collection of songs by Armenian "composer of genius" Gomidas Vardabet "is a series of his songs with classical instrumental arrangements, sung with bewitching power by the Armenian-Canadian soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian. The accompaniment—by an ensemble led by Serouj Kradjian—is perfectly apt."

The Grammy nominations are in, and a big congratulations goes out to the many Nonesuch artists whose work has been recognized by the Recording Academy, the organization behind the awards. Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell, Brad Mehldau, Ry Cooder, Emmylou Harris, Toumani Diabaté, Youssou N'Dour, Stephen Sondheim, Jonny Greenwood, and Isabel Bayrakdarian were all recognized for their recent Nonesuch releases, as were producers Danger Mouse and Judith Sherman for their work on Nonesuch albums this year.

With Black Friday thankfully behind us and so-called Cyber Monday now upon us, the Schenectady Daily Gazette offers a number of "gift-worthy recordings" out this year, including six Nonesuch recordings: Isabel Bayrakdarian's "sublime" Gomidas Songs, Ry Cooder's I, Flathead, Emmylou Harris's All I Intended to Be, Randy Newman's Harps and Angels, Orchestra Baobab's Made in Dakar, and Rokia Traoré's "haunting and heart-lifting" Tchamantché.

Isabel Bayrakdarian's Nonesuch debut, Gomidas Songs, featuring the music of Armenia's national composer, Gomidas Vardabet, has been named a CD Pick of the Week by WNYC's Soundcheck. Gramophone magazine describes the album's repertoire as "exquisitely haunting miniatures [that] sound as if they belong somewhere between Bartók and Canteloube ... Above all, the limpid, melismatic vocal lines allow us to savour the bright lyric soprano of Bayrakdarian at her most relaxed."

Isabel Bayrakdarian's Gomidas Songs was the subject of a segment of New Classical Tracks on Minnesota Public Radio, in which host Julie Amacher declares: "There are so many just plain gorgeous melodies on this recording ... songs that will make you dance, cry, and smile ... Bayrakdarian taps into a well of emotion as she shares these songs of her Armenian heritage. When you join her for the journey, you'll find it's an enriching experience."

Isabel Bayrakdarian's tour with songs celebrating Armenia's national composer featured on her recent Nonesuch debut, Gomidas Songs, came to a close earlier this week. Audiophile Audition says the songs on the album are "rendered to perfection by the wonderful Isabel Bayrakdarian ... fabulous, tuneful, bittersweet, and hopeful ..." The review concludes: "[T]his album soars to one of the top song albums of the year, heartily and urgently recommended to all."

The closing concert of Isabel Bayrakdarian's North American tour celebrating the music of Armenian composer Gomidas Vartabed was held in Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall on Monday. It featured songs from the soprano's Nonesuch debut, Gomidas Songs, which the New York Times calls "irresistible." In the recital, says the Times, she "playfully gamboled through childlike melodies, her voice warm and sunny; in the laments her plaintive tone cut to the heart. She made sinuously winding melismatic passages seem effortless."

Soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian concluded her North American tour featuring works from her Nonesuch debut, Gomidas Songs, last night in Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall. The New York Times previewed the show with a feature on Gomidas, Armenia's national composer, and calls the new CD "what may be the best shot Gomidas has had to shine for the Western classical music world" in 100 years. On Sunday, Bayrakdarian performed in Boston's Jordan Hall, leading the Boston Globe to note that "even those unfamiliar with Gomidas's work found plenty to savor in Bayrakdarian's ravishing performance." The evening's "most emotional moments ... achieved a riveting purity."

Isabel Bayrakdarian's Remembrance Tour, celebrating the music of Gomidas Vartabed, whose work is featured on her Nonesuch debut, Gomidas Songs, continues this Friday at Toronto's Roy Thomson Hall. Her most recent performance, last week at the Orpheum Theatre in Vancouver, was "a rarity singing a rarity," writes the Vancouver Sun—Bayrakdarian for "her lustrous voice and emotional commitment to the material she finds meaningful." The Nonesuch recording is "wonderful," says the Sun, and the live performance of it "captivated us with the beauty of the songs."

Isabel Bayrakdarian began her North American tour music from her recently released Nonesuch debut, Gomidas Songs, this past weekend in California and heads to Vancouver tonight. The Star-Ledger gives the album four stars and says this "charming artist with a warm, gleaming voice ... sounds utterly authentic in these piquant, touching songs." The San Francisco Chronicle says Saturday's tour opener there, by "the brilliant Armenian Canadian singer," was "transfixing ... a wondrous showcase for singer and composer alike." Her voice's "vivid, dark-hued tone and sumptuous phrasing imbued every piece of music with warmth and urgency. Her singing reached great heights of oratorical splendor when necessary, but the simplicity of some of the more straightforward songs was equally touching."