Sharon Isbin BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE - APRIL 2020 Guitarist Sharon Isbin is one of the music world’s great collaborators Working with masters who are willing ‘‘to collaborate with me is the best kind of togetherness you could hope for THE BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE INTERVIEW Sharon Isbin ’’ Spain, the UK and recently India. And From Bach masters to Joan though she could live comfortably on Baez, Sharon Isbin refuses performances of Rodrigo’s Concierto to make do with the classical guitar’s traditional repertoire. de Aranjuez and a handful of Spanish Brian Wise meets a thrilling miniatures, she has devoted much of musician paving the way her career to inspiring (and cajoling) composers to write concertos that speak PHOTOGRAPHY: LAURA BARISONZI to her interests. ‘The Concierto is a magical piece, and I love playing it, but we can’t only haron Isbin is one of a handful of do that,’ says Isbin, who has recorded it at classical guitarists of the post-Andrés least three times. ‘And to work with masters S Segovia age who have crossed into who are willing to collaborate with me something approaching celebrity. That and find ways to make it really idiomatic is what happens when you’ve performed for the instrument – that’s the best kind of alongside Sting, Joan Baez and Mark togetherness you can hope for.’ O’Connor; have founded the Juilliard As a hazy light pours into Isbin’s School’s guitar department; and have Manhattan apartment on a winter commissioned concert works from the likes afternoon, she is flanked by artefacts of John Corigliano, Aaron Jay Kernis, Joan from her trips to South America, among Tower and Christopher Rouse. And that them a handcrafted poison-dart gun and doesn’t even scratch the surface of Isbin’s a dried-out piranha head. Other objects reach into popular culture, which includes in the room capture something even more a cameo in the pioneering Showtime series fundamental about Isbin’s interests. In one The L Word and a performance in the White corner is a mustard-coloured armchair, House before Barack and Michelle Obama. on which Isbin practises transcendental Isbin’s desire to expand the guitar meditation, a technique that requires repertoire has sparked collaborations sitting for 20 minutes twice a day and with artists from Brazil, China, Colombia, repeating a mantra. 32 BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE APRIL2020 BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE 33 Sharon Isbin Cross-culture: Isbin performs with Sting in New York, November 2015 Resonant: Chinese star Xuefei Yang Five female guitarists French-Sicilian guitarist Ida Presti (1924-67) was considered ‘an outstanding musician…with a sound ‘For me, transcendental meditation is an interest in guitar lessons, and their that was instantly part of Indian philosophy in the sense of parents arranged for him to study with beautiful.’ unity of peoples, of nations, of minds, of Aldo Minella, a student of Segovia’s. ‘My Although many thoughts, of spirits,’ she says. ‘It’s also just brother’s fantasy was to be the next Elvis,’ of her recordings a great technique for anyone who wants to she says. ‘But when he learned that the were with be released and relieved of stress and to be lessons would be classical he said “no way”, her husband, able to focus on their own inner creativity, so I volunteered to take his place.’ Alexandre Lagoya, be super-productive and be able to get After returning to Minneapolis, Isbin’s head to The Art of Ida Presti, her along with others.’ father told her she couldn’t launch model finest solo album. Isbin has practised the meditation rockets until she practised the guitar for Liona Boyd is known for her performance of classical styles from technique since she was 17 years old, and an hour. The bribe paid off. At age 14 she around the world. Her 1979 album recently came into closer contact with it performed a Vivaldi concerto with the The First Lady of the Guitar shows during her first tour to India, in which Minnesota Orchestra after winning a local the Canadian star at her peak. she travelled to New Delhi, Mumbai competition. She went on to study at Yale China’s first internationally and Kolkata alongside the sarod master University, earning both her bachelor’s recognised guitarist, Xuefei Yang Amjad Ali Khan and other noted Indian and master’s degrees in music, and taking is celebrated for her resonant musicians (their recording Strings for Peace occasional lessons from Segovia. sound and her commitment to is out in May). ‘It was fascinating to go to Before graduation in 1979, Isbin collaboration. In their album Songs the country of origin and feel steeped in approached Rosalyn Tureck, the late from our Ancestors, Yang and tenor the culture of something that has been so Baroque keyboard player and scholar, with Ian Bostridge explore music from pivotal and important in my own life,’ she the aim of developing her skills in early across the ages. Milonga Del Angel, a recording of South American and adds. repertoire. ‘Actually it was my mother’s Spanish music featuring Yang and Beyond spiritual concerns, Isbin is also a idea,’ she says. ‘She was not too impressed violinist Mengla Huang, is also worth former child science whizz, the daughter of with how my Bach was sounding and a listen. a chemical engineer whose earliest I can understand that. It wasn’t very Croatian-born Ana Vidovi´c now ambition growing up in Minneapolis was good.’ Though Tureck had never taught a lives in the US and tours around the to be a rocket scientist. In another corner of guitarist, she agreed to give Isbin a lesson. world. Hear the her living room, not far from her two ‘That was the test and I guess I passed it. young Vidovi´c in Grammy Awards, are a pair of model For ten years I studied with her and we had Naxos’s Laureate rockets. One is a scale model of the Saturn a friendship for a good 30 years. Series for guitar. 1B; the other she designed herself and ‘It was fascinating for her to work Recovering from an injury when tested by putting unsuspecting with an instrument that was so closely she was 19, Irina grasshoppers in the plastic payload as it connected with her keyboard, with the Kulikova developed an interest in was shot 1,500 feet in the air. harpsichord. The lute definitely had a physical and spiritual well-being These too had a role in her passion relationship to the harpsichord. One of which she then reflected in her for the guitar. When Isbin was nine, her Bach’s so-called lute suites was written performances. Her Naxos album father, a professor at the University of for a lautenwerk, a keyboard instrument Reminiscences of Russia is brilliantly Minnesota, took the family on a one-year strung with gut strings to sound like a played and wonderfully calming. GETTY sabbatical to Italy. Her older brother voiced BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE 35 BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE 35 32 Sharon Isbin Sharon Isbin I’m pinching myself thinking, “I’m sitting in a car and Joan Baez is humming in the backseat. That’s pretty cool!”’ Isbin has not shied away from her pop and rock brethren, having shared the stage with Nancy Wilson of the band Heart, and with the electric guitarist and former Frank Zappa sideman Steve Vai. In fact, Isbin says that many American classical guitarists start out as would-be rockers before they decide to explore the classical instrument. This differs from Europe, where interest in classical repertoire begins earlier and, as a result, the instrument lacks macho overtones. ‘It’s still 90 per cent guys in the US,’ she says, ruefully. ‘It’s really a matter of having role models out there so that people do not see limitations.’ Besides Tureck, one of Isbin’s role models was Ida Presti, the leading Golden tones: woman classical guitarist of an earlier Isbin, photographed in New York generation, who died in her early 40s. Colin Davin, a former Isbin student who now teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Music, reports that there are ‘a decent lute. She hadn’t explored these four suites number of female students’ in Isbin’s before, and I think it was a fun challenge to ‘We need to have Juilliard studio, and that a wide range of immerse herself in something different.’ nationalities are represented. He is now her With Tureck, Isbin developed the first role models out there frequent duet partner and arranger. ‘She’s performing edition, for guitar, of Bach’s had a number of prominent graduates go lute suites, followed in 1989 by a recording. so that people do on to be professionals, including Antigoni And her training with Tureck informed Goni,’ he observes. a recent collaboration with the Pacifica not see limitations’ For all of her advocacy, there is no String Quartet on pieces by Boccherini disputing her versatility or desire to keep and Vivaldi. Brandon Vamos, the Pacifica writing his concerto Affinity, Isbin pushing forward. She is enthralled by Quartet’s cellist, says he admires the varied suggested he include a homage to his father, cultural connections, tracing the roots of colours in Isbin’s sound and her fastidious the jazz legend Dave Brubeck (the premiere Spanish flamenco music to the Romani regard to detail. ‘Every phrase is talked recording, also titled Affinity, is out in May). and gypsy musicians to India. Or when, about,’ he says of their rehearsals, which Previously, she proposed the theme of the working with Tan Dun, she evoked the began at the Aspen Music Festival, where Joan Baez Suite to the late British composer wiry sound of the Chinese pipa, and in the Isbin directs the guitar department.