Acclaimed for her extraordinary lyricism, technique and versatility,
GRAMMY Award winner Sharon Isbin has been hailed as “the
pre-eminent guitarist of our time”. She is also the winner of
Guitar Player magazine’s “Best Classical
Guitarist” award, the Madrid Queen Sofia and Toronto Competitions,
and was the first guitarist ever to win the Munich Competition. She has
given sold-out performances throughout the world in the greatest halls
including New York’s Carnegie and Avery Fisher Halls, Boston’s
Symphony Hall, Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center, London’s
Barbican and Wigmore Halls, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Paris’
Châtelet, Vienna’s Musikverein, Munich’s Herkulessaal,
Madrid’s Teatro Real, and many others. She has served as Artistic
Director/Soloist of festivals she created for Carnegie Hall and the
Ordway Music Theatre (St. Paul), her own series at
New York’s 92nd Street Y,
and the acclaimed national radio series Guitarjam. She is a
frequent guest on national radio programs including All Things
Considered and Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home
Companion. She has been profiled on television throughout the world,
including CBS Sunday Morning and the A&E Network, and was a
featured guest on Showtime Television’s international hit series
The L Word. On September 11, 2002, Ms. Isbin performed at Ground
Zero for the internationally televised memorial. She performed as
featured soloist in the soundtrack for Martin Scorsese’s Academy
Award winning film, The Departed. She has been profiled in
periodicals from People to Elle, The Wall Street
Journal and the New York Times, as well as on the cover
of more than 40 magazines.
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Joaquin Rodrigo and Sharon share a reunion
at his home in Madrid on May 23, l998. |
Ms. Isbin’s catalogue of over 25 recordings—from Baroque,
Spanish/Latin and 20th Century to crossover and
jazz-fusion—reflects remarkable versatility. Recently signed to
SONY Masterworks as an exclusive recording artist, her debut CD
Journey to the New World
features guests
Joan Baez
in songs, and
Mark O’Connor
in the world premiere of his
folk-inspired suite for violin and guitar. Ranked as the #1 bestselling classical CD on
Amazon.com and iTunes, it is a fixture on the top Billboard charts.
Her Dreams of a World soared
onto top classical Billboard charts, edging out The 3 Tenors, and earned
her a 2001 GRAMMY Award for “Best Instrumental Soloist Performance”,
making her the first classical guitarist to receive a GRAMMY in 28
years. Her world premiere recording of concerti written for her by
Christopher Rouse
and
Tan Dun
debuted as #6 on the Billboard charts and
received a 2002 GRAMMY Award, as well as Germany’s prestigious Echo
Klassik Award. She received a 2005 Latin GRAMMY nomination for “Best
Classical Album” and a 2006 GLAAD Media Award nomination for
“Outstanding Music Artist” (alongside Melissa Etheridge) for her
Billboard Top 10 Classical disc with the
New York Philharmonic
of Joaquin Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez, and concerti by
Mexican composer Manuel Ponce and Brazilian Heitor Villa-Lobos. This
marked the Philharmonic’s first-ever recording with guitar, and
followed their Avery Fisher Hall performances with Ms. Isbin as their
first guitar soloist in 26 years. Baroque Favorites for Guitar
with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra remained on the Billboard Top
10 Classical Chart for over 16 weeks, and her Journey to the
Amazon with Brazilian percussionist
Thiago de Mello
and saxophonist
Paul Winter,
a Billboard best-seller in the U.S. and the U.K., received a 1999
GRAMMY nomination for “Best Classical Crossover Album”. She is
also featured on Howard Shore’s 2008 GRAMMY nominated soundtrack CD
for The Departed.
Other CDs include Artist Profile, Wayfaring Stranger with
mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer, Greatest Hits (EMI/Virgin
Classics), and Aaron Jay Kernis’ Double Concerto
(Argo/Decca) with violinist Cho-Liang Lin and the Saint Paul Chamber
Orchestra (SPCO) which received a 2000 GRAMMY nomination. Her eight
best-selling titles for EMI/Virgin Classics include J.S. Bach
Complete Lute Suites, and concerti by Joaquin Rodrigo which the
composer praised as “magnificent”. She is also featured on the
GRAMMY Foundation’s Smart Symphonies™ CD distributed
to over five million families. Her recordings have received many other
awards, including “Critic’s Choice Recording of the Year”
in both Gramophone and CD Review, “Recording of the
Month” in Stereo Review, and “Album of the Year”
in Guitar Player.
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Isbin’s American Landscapes CD
afloat in Space Shuttle Atlantis
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Sharon Isbin has been acclaimed for expanding the guitar repertoire with
some of the finest new works of the century. She has commissioned and
premiered more concerti than any other guitarist, as well as numerous
solo and chamber works. Her American Landscapes (EMI/Virgin
Classics) with the SPCO conducted by Hugh Wolff is the first-ever
recording of American guitar concerti and features works written for her by
John Corigliano,
Joseph Schwantner,
and
Lukas Foss.
(In November 1995, it was launched in the space shuttle Atlantis and
presented to Russian cosmonauts during a rendezvous with Mir.) She has
also recorded the Schwantner with Leonard Slatkin and the St. Louis
Symphony. In January 2000, she premiered the ninth concerto written for
her: Concert de Gaudí by Christopher Rouse with Christoph
Eschenbach and the NDR Symphony, followed by performances with Andrew
Litton and the Dallas Symphony, and David Zinman at the Aspen Music
Festival. Among the many other composers who have written for her are
Joan Tower,
David Diamond,
Aaron Jay Kernis,
Leo Brouwer,
Howard Shore,
Steve Vai,
and
Ned Rorem
in whose documentary she is featured. In 2003 she premiered John
Duarte’s Joan Baez Suite, and in 2005 she premiered a duo by
rock guitarist Steve Vai in their joint concert in Paris’
Théâtre du Châtelet.
Ms. Isbin performs 60-100 concerts a season, and recent highlights have
included tours with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, the Tonkünstler
Orchestra throughout Austria including Vienna’s Musikverein, recitals in
New York’s 92nd St Y and Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center, a week of
concerto and recital performances presented by the Théâtre du Châtelet
in Paris, and as soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra, Filarmonica
Toscanini in Milan, and the 2009 MIDEM Classical Awards in Cannes.
2009-10 highlights include performances with Detroit, Nashville, and
Pacific (Los Angeles) Symphonies, and recitals in Chicago, Atlanta,
California, South Carolina, Alaska and Aspen.
Ms. Isbin has appeared as soloist with over 160 orchestras, including in
the United States the New York Philharmonic, National Symphony,
Baltimore, Houston, Dallas, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, St. Louis, New
Jersey, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Phoenix, Utah, Memphis and Honolulu
Symphonies, the Rochester, Brooklyn and Buffalo Philharmonics, as well
as the St. Paul, New York and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestras.
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Sharon at age 9
Varese, ITALY
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Ms. Isbin has toured Europe annually since she was seventeen, and has
also toured Canada, Japan and the Far East, New Zealand, South America,
Mexico and Israel appearing in recital and as soloist with such
orchestras as the Zurich, Scottish and Lausanne Chamber Orchestras, the
London Symphony, Orchestre National de France, BBC Scottish, Lisbon
Gulbenkian, Prague, Milan Verdi, Mexico City, Jerusalem and Tokyo
Symphonies. Festival appearances include Mostly Mozart, Aspen, Ravinia,
Grant Park, Interlochen, Santa Fe, Mexico City, Bermuda, Hong Kong,
Montreux, Strasbourg, Paris, Athens, Istanbul, Prague, Ravenna and
Budapest International Festivals.
As a chamber musician, Ms. Isbin has performed with Mark O’Connor,
Steve Vai, Nigel Kennedy, Denyce Graves, Susanne Mentzer, the Emerson
String Quartet and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, among
others. She performed a “Guitar Summit” tour with jazz greats
Herb Ellis, Stanley Jordan and Michael Hedges; she made trio recordings
with Larry Coryell and Laurindo Almeida, and duo recordings with Carlos
Barbosa-Lima. She collaborated with Antonio Carlos Jobim, and has shared
the stage with luminaries from Aretha Franklin to Muhammad Ali.
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...with Sheila
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Born in Minneapolis, Sharon Isbin began her guitar studies at age nine
in Italy, and later studied with Andrès Segovia and Oscar Ghiglia.
A former student of
Rosalyn Tureck,
Ms. Isbin collaborated with the noted keyboardist in preparing the first
performance editions of the Bach
lute suites for guitar (published by G. Schirmer). She
received a B.A. cum laude from Yale University and a Master of Music
from the Yale School of Music. She is the author of the
Classical Guitar Answer Book,
and is Director of guitar departments at the
Aspen Music Festival
and
The Juilliard School
(which she created in l989 becoming the first and only guitar instructor
in the institution’s 100-year history).
In her spare time, Ms. Isbin enjoys trekking in the jungles of Latin
America, motorcycling through Greek islands, cross-country skiing,
snorkeling and backpacking.
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