Sharon Isbin

Guitarist Sharon Isbin has long confounded reviewers seeking language adequate to her artistry, a quality the Boston Globe's Michael Manning once characterized as playing that goes "beyond virtuosity." Performing across the globe at major halls, she commissions more new pieces from leading American composers than any other guitarist, collaborates with an unusually broad range of fellow musicians, and continually explores fresh repertoire for the instrument.

Born in Minneapolis on August 7, 1956, Isbin initially imagined following her father into science. Guitar studies began at age nine while the family lived in Italy, and the instrument soon became her calling. She earned both a B.A. and a Master of Music from Yale University, studying with Andrés Segovia and harpsichordist Rosalyn Tureck. Together with Tureck she prepared the first performance edition for guitar of J. S. Bach's Lute Suites, a project that later yielded a widely praised recording.

In 1989 Isbin established the guitar department at the Juilliard School and became its inaugural guitar professor. Her commitment to enlarging the classical guitar's literature has produced commissions and premieres of works by composers such as John Corigliano, Joan Tower, Christopher Rouse, and Howard Shore.

Since beginning to tour at seventeen, she has appeared across the United States, Europe, and Asia with leading orchestras including the New York Philharmonic and the symphony orchestras of Montreal, Detroit, and London, as well as with the Pacifica Quartet and the Emerson String Quartet. She has also shared stages with Sting.

Her recordings have repeatedly marked significant moments for the instrument. The 1995 release, the first devoted entirely to American guitar concerti, traveled aboard the space shuttle Atlantis and was presented to a Russian cosmonaut during the Atlantis-Mir rendezvous. Journey to the Amazon, recorded with percussionist Thiago de Mello and saxophonist Paul Winter, received a Grammy nomination in 1999. Dreams of a World: Folk-Inspired Music for Guitar earned her a Grammy in 2001, the first classical guitar album so honored in twenty-eight years. Another nomination followed in 2002 for a disc featuring world-premiere performances of concerti by Rouse and Tan Dun, both written expressly for her. In 2010 she received a second Grammy for Journey to the New World, recorded with Joan Baez and Mark O'Connor. Additional releases include Aaron Jay Kernis' Double Concerto with violinist Cho-Liang Lin, Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez, and Sharon Isbin Plays Baroque Favorites for Guitar, the last highlighted by a remarkable transcription of Bach's Violin Concerto in A minor.

American Public Television's 2014 documentary Sharon Isbin: Troubador chronicled her dual roles as performer and educator. In 2020 Musical America named her Instrumentalist of the Year, the first guitarist to receive that distinction.