Sharon Isbin: Classical guitarist extraordinaire
November 21, 2014 10:01 PM   Subscribe

Sharon Isbin is the Founder and Chair of the Guitar program at Julliard; she is widely heralded as one of the best classical guitarists on earth. To get you started, give a listen to the sublime nature of Isbin's gift as she plays the exquisite Recuerdos de la Alhambra by Francisco Tarrega posted by Vibrissae (20 comments total) 61 users marked this as a favorite
 
The Juilliard School
posted by ReeMonster at 11:31 PM on November 21, 2014


I love me some Spanish guitar! That guy who presented her in the Mallorca clip -- would it had killed him to wear a tie?
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 11:56 PM on November 21, 2014


potsmokinghippieoverlord: "That guy who presented her in the Mallorca clip -- would it had killed him to wear a tie?"

What's the opposite of eponysterical?
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 12:18 AM on November 22, 2014 [5 favorites]


With that first clip that seems really just impossible to be a single player, but everything I read says the piece is for a single guitar.

(looks at stubby sausage fingers) damn you untalented instruments! you perfidious phalanges! pfui with the whole deal!
posted by drewbage1847 at 12:22 AM on November 22, 2014


I generally don't care for classical guitar but I can listen to "Asturias" over and over again, probably because the Doors borrowed from it for "Spanish Caravan".

And her playing here is perfect, just absolutely perfect.
posted by Woodroar at 12:31 AM on November 22, 2014


Here is her performance of the concerto "Yi2" that composer Tan Dun wrote for her, melding elements of the history of classic Spanish guitar and ancient Chinese lute (pipa):
I - Rubato
II - Adagio
III - Andante agitato
IV - Cadenza
V - Ending

Also notable: after her coming out twenty years ago, she is a vocal champion for LGBT rights, as mentioned also in the documentary about her career, Troubadour.
posted by progosk at 2:48 AM on November 22, 2014 [2 favorites]


That performance of Mallorca is exquisite. Such poise, sensitivity and skill - at just 19.
posted by freya_lamb at 3:49 AM on November 22, 2014


I play guitar and I have to admit that she's the only contemporary classical guitarist I can name.
posted by tommasz at 4:53 AM on November 22, 2014


I play guitar and I have to admit that I had never heard of Isbin before. So thanks for a great post!

Other contemporary classical guitarists include:

-John Williams
-Pepe Romero
-Julian Bream
-Liona Boyd
-John Feeley
-Ana Vidovic
posted by obscure simpsons reference at 7:11 AM on November 22, 2014


I've been playing guitar for 25+ years and on a misguided whim decided to learn a collection of Tarrega songs not too long ago. Bought a book of sheet music and set my goals and had at it.

At the end of the experiment I could only play the easy parts of Gran Vals with any sort of confidence.

(Gran Vals has the honor of containing the "Nokia cell phone ringtone" jingle, which the folks at Nokia lifted from the composition in the early days of cell phones, it stuck around)

Kudos to Steve Vai for keeping up with her, even with his extreme musicianship you can still hear he can't quite nail the technique.
posted by remlapm at 7:31 AM on November 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


I've always been more of a Berta Rojas person. Just kidding! How do you choose between rubies and emeralds? Between cake and pie?
posted by cleroy at 8:04 AM on November 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


And, "thanks!" to progosk. I'd not heard the Tan Dun music before. There is quite a bit of translation from Chinese traditional music to guitar lately. I'm a big fan of Xuefei Yang's pipa transcriptions.
posted by cleroy at 8:32 AM on November 22, 2014


Exquisite.

.
posted by mule98J at 10:28 AM on November 22, 2014


A wonderful post. It makes me happy to know our world can produce artists like this.
posted by annekate at 12:32 PM on November 22, 2014


Kudos to Steve Vai for keeping up with her, even with his extreme musicianship you can still hear he can't quite nail the technique.

he needs to lose the pick if he's going to try to play stuff like this - even single note lines aren't going to sound right with one
posted by pyramid termite at 12:40 PM on November 22, 2014


Isben is outstanding...we are lucky to have her.

Although not strictly classical (though she does excel at the form when she plays it) Muriel Anderson is also one of the best of the best female guitarists we have. Check out her Fantasia de Fuego. Also, here is her version of the guitar as Koto: Kojo o Tsuki - Osaka. Finally, here she is with her famous Harp Guitar playing Velzoe's Garden.
posted by Quasimike at 2:42 PM on November 22, 2014


I am surpised that no one has mentioned Christopher Parkening.
posted by grimjeer at 2:44 PM on November 22, 2014


Sharon is amazing. I think I need to listen to her now, in fact...
posted by susanbeeswax at 2:51 PM on November 22, 2014


Strangely absent from all this is her recording of the Bach Lute suites on classical guitar. At one time they were the definitive performances (and I'm guessing they still are or are at least near the top).

When I was learning one of the suites I kept her CD playing while poring over the various versions of the existing pieces as well as Koonce's critical edition. While I didn't always agree with her choices (one should never agree with every choice another performer makes!) I could see where they made perfect sense, were very musical, and never compromised either the material, Baroque performance style, or playability. A very remarkable effort.

Here's one example, the Gigue from BWV 996. Seriously, get this CD, it's amazing.

(Also, classical guitar != Spanish music! I mean yes, we end up playing tons of Spanish music but there's so much more to the repertoire than that. So much more.)
posted by bfootdav at 5:18 PM on November 22, 2014


Heck, here's another one the Prelude from 1006a. An amazing performance. I used to perform this piece by itself and it was a crowd-pleaser (technically challenging while also just really cool) but her performance, obviously, puts mine to shame.

I tried to find her performances of Britten's Nocturnal and Walton's 5 Bagatelles but was unable to find them on Youtube (how are there still not things on Youtube?). Again, find these and listen to them.
posted by bfootdav at 5:28 PM on November 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


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