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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 Hall, 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, St. Paul Sunday, 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. She has been featured in periodicals from People to Elle, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, as well as on the cover of 35 magazines.
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. 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 marks the Philharmonic’s first-ever recording with guitar, and follows their Avery Fisher Hall performances in June 2004 with Ms. Isbin as their first guitar soloist in 26 years. Her Dreams of a World: Folk-inspired Music for Guitar 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. Baroque Favorites for Guitar with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra features concerti by Bach, Vivaldi and Albinoni, including four world premieres, and remained on the Billboard Top 10 Classical Chart for over 16 weeks. Her world premiere recording of concerti written for her by Christopher Rouse and Tan Dun (composer of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) debuted as #6 on the Billboard charts and received a 2002 GRAMMY Award for the concerto by Rouse, and earned Ms. Isbin her third nomination (“Best Instrumental Soloist with Orchestra”), as well as Germany’s prestigious Echo Klassik Award for “Best Concert Recording”. 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”.
Other recent 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.
Isbin’s American Landscapes CD
afloat in Space Shuttle Atlantis
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, Ned Rorem, Aaron Jay Kernis and Leo Brouwer. In 2003, Sharon Isbin premiered the Joan Baez Suite written for her by John Duarte.
Ms. Isbin performs 60-100 concerts a season, and her 2005-6 highlights include a month-long U.S. tour with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, as well as performances in New York’s Town Hall, Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center, Boston, St. Paul, Madison, Rome and many other cities. 2004-5 highlights included performances with the Pittsburgh, Pacific Symphony (Los Angeles), Memphis, Maryland, Oklahoma and Milan Verdi orchestras, a tour with the Tonkünstler Orchestra in Vienna’s Musikverein and throughout Austria, recitals in New York’s 92nd St. Y, St. Louis, Aspen, California, Indiana, Italy and Prague Spring Festival, and a week of concerto and recital performances presented by the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, including a world premiere composed by and performed with rock guitarist Steve Vai. On September 11, 2002, Ms. Isbin performed at Ground Zero for the reading of the names memorial and internationally televised broadcast, which included Yo-Yo Ma, Gil Shaham and the Juilliard String Quartet.
Ms. Isbin has appeared as soloist with over 160 orchestras, including in the United States with 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.
Sharon at age 9
Varese, ITALY
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 London Symphony, Orchestre National de France, Scottish Chamber, Zurich Chamber and Lausanne Chamber Orchestras, BBC Scottish, Gulbenkian, Prague, Milan Verdi, Mexico City, Jerusalem and Tokyo Symphonies. Festival appearances include Mostly Mozart, Aspen, Ravinia, Interlochen, Santa Fe, Mexico City, Bermuda, Hong Kong, Montreux, Strasbourg, Paris, Athens, Istanbul, Prague Spring and Budapest International Festivals.
As a chamber musician, Ms. Isbin has performed with Nigel Kennedy, Denyce Graves, Benita Valente, 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 has also collaborated with Antonio Carlos Jobim and Steve Vai, and shared the stage with luminaries from Aretha Franklin to Muhammad Ali.
...with Sheila
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 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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