Portland Classic Guitar presents Multi Grammy Award winner Sharon Isbin Jan. 15th!
Portland Classic Guitar (PCG) is proud to present guitar virtuoso and multiple GRAMMY-winner Sharon Isbin, headlining the PCG concert season in an 8 p.m. performance on Friday, January 15, 2016, at the First Congregational Church in downtown Portland. A master class will follow this much-anticipated event, at 11 a.m. on Saturday, January 16, in Marylhurst’s Wiegand Hall. Isbin is widely acclaimed for her extraordinary lyricism, technique, and versatility, and this concert will be a must for all fans of classical guitar (and of good music in general). Get your tickets early!
Born in Minneapolis, Isbin began her guitar studies at age nine. Studying at Yale, and with Andrès Segovia, Oscar Ghiglia, and Rosalyn Tureck, she made an early contribution to the art by collaborating on landmark editions of the Bach lute suites for guitar (published by G. Schirmer). In the years since, her catalogue of over 25 recordings has showcased expertise in styles that range from Baroque to Spanish/Latin music to modernism to jazz-fusion and other crossover genres. In addition to her GRAMMYs, she has received a “Critic’s Choice Recording of the Year” in both Gramophone and CD Review, a “Recording of the Month” in Stereo Review, and an “Album of the Year” in Guitar Player. She has also been hailed as “the pre-eminent guitarist of our time,” and once received Guitar Player magazine’s coveted “Best Classical Guitarist” award.
Given such accolades, it is not surprising that many of today’s top artists have collaborated with Isbin in one way or another. She has appeared as soloist with over 170 orchestras, and given sold-out performances in the world’s finest halls—including New York’s Carnegie and Avery Fisher Halls, Boston’s Symphony Hall, and Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center. She has collaborated with a who’s who of contemporary artists—including such varied luminaries as Steve Vai, Stanley Jordan, Joan Baez, Mark O’Connor, the Emerson String Quartet, Herb Ellis, Michael Hedges, and Antonio Carlos Jobim.
But it is not just critics and other musicians who adore Isbin. She is extremely popular with audiences as well. She once gave a concert at the White House for President and Mrs. Obama. She is a frequent guest on such well-loved national radio programs as All Things Considered and Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion, and was recently the subject of a PBS documentary, Troubadour. She has been profiled on television throughout the world, including on CBS Sunday Morning and the A&E network. She was a featured guest on Showtime Television’s hit series The L Word, and was the only classical artist to perform in the 2010 GRAMMY Awards. She performed as featured soloist on the soundtrack for Martin Scorsese’s Academy-Award-winning film, The Departed.
On top of all this, Isbin is a noted educator. She is Director of Classical Guitar at the Aspen Music Festival, and Director of the Guitar Department of the Juilliard School (in fact, she created the latter department in l989, becoming the first guitar instructor in the institution’s 100-year history). She has served as Artistic Director 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.