Ep. 110: Sharon Isbin, guitarist. Grammy Award winner & founder of the Juilliard Guitar Dept.

Let's Talk Off The Podium

Ep. 110: Sharon Isbin, guitarist. Grammy Award winner & founder of the Juilliard Guitar Dept.

Let's Talk Off The Podium with Tigran Arakelyan.

Acclaimed for her extraordinary lyricism, technique and versatility, multiple Grammy Award winner Sharon Isbin was named the 2020 Musical America Worldwide Instrumentalist of the Year, the first guitarist ever to receive the coveted honor in its 59 year award history. Soloist with over 200 orchestras, Isbin has performed in the world’s finest halls. Winner of the Toronto, Madrid and Munich ARD Competitions, Germany’s Echo Klassik and Guitar Player’s Best Classical Guitarist awards, she performed in Scorsese’s Oscar-winning The Departed, at Ground Zero for the first internationally televised 9/11 memorial, the White House by invitation of President Obama, and as the only classical artist in the 2010 Grammy Awards. The documentary Sharon Isbin: Troubadour, seen by millions on over 200 PBS stations across the U.S. and abroad, won the ASCAP Television Broadcast Award. Recent highlights include a commission for her by Carnegie Hall, a 21-city Guitar Passions tour with jazz greats Stanley Jordan and Romero Lubambo, sold-out concerts at the Kennedy Center, Kimmel Center, and her most recent Carnegie Hall appearances included collaborations with Sting and in recital with Isabel Leonard.

Isbin’s catalogue of over 30 albums, from Baroque, Spanish/Latin and 20th Century to crossover and jazz-fusion have sold nearly a million copies and reflect her remarkable versatility. Her two latest releases in May 2020 of world premiere recordings of music composed for her are Affinity featuring Chris Brubeck’s acclaimed concerto for guitar and orchestra, and Strings for Peace, with India’s legendary Amjad Ali Khan in a program of ragas for guitar, sarod and tabla. Her 2019 release with the Pacifica Quartet, Souvenirs of Spain & Italy, debuted at #1 on Amazon and #2 on Billboard, and her Grammy-winning Journey to the New World with guests Joan Baez and Mark O’Connor spent 63 consecutive weeks on top Billboard charts. Isbin’s Dreams of a World earned her a Grammy for Best Instrumental Soloist, making her the first classical guitarist to receive the award in 28 years. Her recording of concerti composed for her by Christopher Rouse and Tan Dun was honored with a Grammy, and her Rodrigo Aranjuez with the New York Philharmonic, their only recording with guitar, received a Latin Grammy nomination.

Author of the Classical Guitar Answer Book, Isbin has premiered over 80 works written for her by some of the world’s finest composers, and directs the guitar departments at the Aspen Music Festival and The Juilliard School, which she created in 1989.

In this episode we talk about Sharon Isbin's new albums, working with composers, competitions, passion for new music, numerous collaborations and advice to young musicians. She also speaks about transcendental meditation, recent work with Chris Brubeck, work with non-classical artists and much more.

For more information about Sharon Isbin please visit: http://www.sharonisbin.com

© Let's Talk Off The Podium, 2020