Acclaimed for her extraordinary lyricism, technique and versatility, multiple Grammy Award winner Sharon Isbin has been hailed as "the pre-eminent guitarist of our time". She is the winner o ...Show More
Acclaimed for her extraordinary lyricism, technique and versatility, multiple Grammy Award winner Sharon Isbin has been hailed as "the pre-eminent guitarist of our time". She is the winner of Guitar Player magazine's Best Classical Guitarist award, the Munich, Toronto and Madrid international competitions, Germany's Echo Klassik award, Concert Artists Guild's Virtuoso Award, and many others. She has appeared as soloist with over 170 orchestras and has given sold-out performances in the world's finest 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, and Madrid's Teatro Real. She has served as Artistic Director/Soloist of festivals she created for Carnegie Hall, the Ordway Music Theatre (St. Paul), New York's 92nd Street Y, and the acclaimed national radio series Guitarjam. A frequent guest on NPR's All Things Considered and A Prairie Home Companion, she has been profiled on television throughout the world, including CBS Sunday Morning, and she was featured as soloist on the Grammy nominated soundtrack of Scorsese's Academy Award-winning The Departed (2006), and as a guest actress on Showtime Television's hit series The L Word (2004). Ms. Isbin performed at Ground Zero for the first internationally televised 9/11 memorial, in concert at the White House by invitation of President Obama, and was the only classical artist to perform in the 2010 Grammy Awards. She has been profiled in periodicals from People to Elle, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, and has appeared on the cover of over 45 magazines. Her 2015 national television performances on PBS include the Billy Joel Gershwin Prize, Tavis Smiley, and American Public Television's acclaimed one-hour documentary on her life and work titled Sharon Isbin: Troubadour (2014), seen by millions on over 200 PBS stations across the US, and winner of the 2015 ASCAP Television Broadcast Award. The film was released with bonus performances on DVD and Blu-ray by Video Artists International, and is distributed by EuroArts for foreign television.Ms. Isbin's catalog of over 25 recordings-from Baroque, Spanish/Latin and 20th Century to crossover and jazz-fusion-reflects remarkable versatility. Her latest releases, Sharon Isbin: 5 Classic Albums (Warner) and Sharon Isbin & Friends: Guitar Passions (Sony) with rock guests Steve Vai, Steve Morse, Heart's Nancy Wilson and jazz guitarist Stanley Jordan, have been #1 bestsellers on Amazon.com. Her 2010 Grammy Award-winning Journey to the New World with guests Joan Baez and Mark O'Connor was a #1 bestseller on Amazon and iTunes, and spent 63 consecutive weeks on the top Billboard charts. Other Grammys include her world premiere recording of concerti written for her by Christopher Rouse and Tan Dun, and Dreams of a World which made her the first classical guitarist in 28 years to receive the award. She received Latin Grammy and GLAAD Media Award nominations for her Rodrigo Aranjuez, Ponce and Villa-Lobos concerti with the New York Philharmonic-their first and only recording with a guitar soloist. Other honors include Gramophone's Recording of the Year and Guitar Player's Album of the Year.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, and her American Landscapes CD with works for her by Corigliano, Schwantner and Foss was the first-ever recording of American guitar concerti. In November 1995, it was launched in the space shuttle Atlantis and presented to Russian cosmonauts during a rendezvous with Mir. Her world premieres in 2015 included Affinity: Concerto for Guitar & Orchestra composed for her by Chris Brubeck, and a commission for her and opera star Isabel Leonard by Carnegie Hall for their 125th anniversary with Chicago's Harris Theater.Recent highlights include sold-out recitals in Carnegie Hall, Philadelphia's Kimmel Center and Washington D.C.'s Kennedy Center; tours with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Austria's Tonkünstler Orchestra and Belgium's Philharmonique de Liege; a week of performances at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, MIDEM Classical Awards in Cannes, a 21-city Guitar Passions tour with Stanley Jordan and Romero Lubambo, and a 2015 sold-out performance in Carnegie Hall with Sting which included Katy Perry and Jerry Seinfeld to benefit the David Lynch Foundation.Ms. Isbin appears as soloist with orchestras throughout the world, including the New York Philharmonic, National Symphony, Baltimore, Detroit, Houston, Dallas, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, St. Louis, Nashville, New Jersey, Louisville, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Phoenix, Buffalo and Utah Symphonies; Saint Paul, Los Angeles, Zurich, Scottish and Lausanne Chamber Orchestras; the London Symphony and Orchestre National de France; and BBC Scottish, Lisbon Gulbenkian, Prague, Milan Verdi, Belgrade, Mexico City, Jerusalem and Tokyo Symphonies. Her festival appearances include Mostly Mozart, Aspen, Ravinia, Grant Park, Interlochen, Santa Fe, Mexico City, Bermuda, Hong Kong, Montreux, Strasbourg, Paris, Athens, Istanbul, Ravenna, Prague and Budapest International Festivals.Born in Minneapolis, Sharon Isbin began her guitar studies at nine in Italy, and later studied with Andrés Segovia and Oscar Ghiglia. A former student of Rosalyn Tureck, Ms. Isbin collaborated with the noted keyboardist in publishing and recording the first performance editions of the Bach lute suites for guitar (Warner Classics/ G. Schirmer). 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 1989. Hide
