Celebrating guitar master Sharon Isbin.
Last year was the year of Sharon Isbin, the out, Grammy Award-winning musician, who is also arguably the world’s greatest female classical guitarist. And it’s easy to see why with the release of 5 of her most popular albums in a new box CD set, which spans everything from Brazil to Baroque.
You may have caught Isbin on tour last November demonstrating her incomparable techniques and interpretative skills in a city near you. Or, you might not know anything about her and want to—and you should. Isbin has done everything, from heading up the guitar department at New York’s prestigious Juilliard School to being invited to play at the Ground Zero Memorial, Carnegie Hall, and the White House.
She is also the subject of a documentary six years in the making. Sharon Isbin: Troubadour explores Isbin’s extraordinary career, with guest appearances from Michelle Obama, Joan Baez, Lesley Gore, and Martina Navratilova. Inspiring and often amusing, it tells the story of a tomboy’s journey from would-be rocket scientist to trailblazing, glamorous performer and teacher.
Isbin might not have embarked on her childhood dream of space travel but she broke barriers to reach the top of the male-dominated guitar world.
Isbin’s incredible musical journey began when she was 9. “We happened to live in Italy, my father’s sabbatical from the University of Minnesota as a scientist,” she recalls. “When my brother asked for lessons on guitar and he discovered it was classical he declined immediately and I offered to take his place.
I began by default and it continued to be a hobby until I was 14. After we came back to the States and I became very involved in the rockets, my father used to say, ‘You can’t launch your rockets until you put an hour in on guitar.’ So he bribed me to keep at it.
And then I ended up winning a competition and the reward was to perform in front of 10,000 people. That’s when I decided it was even more exciting to be on a concert stage than watching my worms and grasshoppers go into space.”
But Isbin never really left her scientific mind behind. At age 16 she would practice with a mirror and a tape recorder. “I had to basically figure it out for myself. I would occasionally have lessons with other guitarists but I really had to problem solve and I think that the work I did in science, whether it was dissecting a fish or building rockets, really trained my process of thinking to be able to find a solution.”
One solution to becoming the best in her field was to learn from the masters who paved the way such as Andres Segovia. She also studied with Rosalyn Tureck, a harpsichordist specialist in Bach, who although not a guitarist, helped Isbin improve her discipline and musical understanding.
“Mentorship is a very important component in guiding the younger generation,” says Isbin. “When I was asked to create the guitar department of The Juilliard School I said yes because it would really give me the opportunity to fashion it after my own belief system and imagination.
And I now have students from more than 20 different countries come and study with me. Mentorship is an exciting way to share information and knowledge. And we live in that kind of age now.”
It’s also the age of YouTube and overnight stardom. But Isbin warns that a musical career “really doesn’t work that way if you want quality and you have standards. You really have to do an enormous amount of work.”
You also have to possess ambition, and that’s something still not encouraged in American women. Isbin’s female guitar graduates all come from overseas, she notes, and it puzzles her that the situation hasn’t changed in over 20 years.
“I certainly remember what it felt like when I was 15 years old and [out of] 50 students of guitar only two of us were girls. That made me especially eager to work hard and be my best so that I could eliminate any sense of doubt based on gender. For me it was a strong motivating factor.”
Along the way, Isbin has managed to find some female guitar heroes, including Joan Baez and Nancy Wilson. She also admires Melissa Etheridge, Kaki King, and Orianthi. “They’re out there,” she says of female career guitarists, “I think it’s just going to take time to break long-spanning traditions.”
In the meantime, Isbin is still the only female guitarist to have won a classical Grammy Award. “Expanding the horizons of an instrument, and what goes into that,” she says, is the subject of her documentary, which is why she is so proud of it. It will also bring Isbin to a wider audience when it’s broadcast on 200 public television stations, outing her on a mass scale.
She came out once before, in 1995 in OUT magazine, after she demonstrated to her manager that “k.d. lang and Melisa Etheridge came out and they were selling platinum.” When the mainstream press picked up the story she felt some trepidation, but a standing ovation at a performance in Atlanta indicated that she was the only one feeling that way.
“I think it’s really important to be who you are, and not hide anything,” says Ibsin, who has been in a relationship for 22 years. “I have to set the example that I believe in by doing it myself.
It allowed me to go to the next level. Everyone has already joined me on the journey of the discovery of music. Coming out is not the focus, it is just a part of who I am.”
Isbin will embark on a U.S. tour this November that will demonstrate her “jaw-dropping technique and lyrical interpretations [that] have helped bring the guitar into the classical mainstream” (Washington Post), reaffirming her position as “one of the best guitarists in the world” (Boston Globe). For tour dates go here: http://bit.ly/1s6nv9r
Sharon Isbin: Troubadour will be broadcast nationally this November and December. The one-hour program explores the trailblazing performer’s extraordinary career, with guests including Michelle Obama, Joan Baez, Martina Navratilova and more.
Presented by American Public Television, Troubadour will air on nearly 200 public television stations and be released on DVD/Blu-ray by Video Artists International