Sharon Isbin
Acclaimed for her extraordinary lyricism, technique and versatility, multiple GRAMMY Award winner Sharon Isbin was named Musical America Worldwide’s 2020 Instrumentalist of the Year, the first guitarist ever to receive the coveted honor in their 59-year award history. She was inducted into the 2023 Guitar Foundation of America Hall of Fame and received their Artistic Achievement Award. Hailed as “the pre-eminent guitarist of our time”, she is the winner of Guitar Player magazine’s Best Classical Guitarist award, Germany’s Echo Klassik, Concert Artists Guild’s Virtuoso Award, the Toronto and Madrid Queen Sofia competitions, and the first guitarist to win the Munich ARD Competition. Isbin has appeared as soloist with over 200 orchestras and has given sold-out performances in many of the world’s finest halls across 40 countries, including New York’s Carnegie and Geffen Halls, Boston’s Symphony Hall, Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, London’s Barbican and Wigmore Halls, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Paris’ Châtelet, Vienna’s Musikverein, Munich’s Herkulessaal, Argentina’s Teatro Colón, and Madrid’s Teatro Real. She has served as Artistic Director and soloist of festivals she created for Carnegie Hall and the Ordway Music Theatre (St. Paul), New York’s 92NY, and the national radio series Guitarjam.
American Public Television’s acclaimed one-hour documentary Sharon Isbin: Troubadour has been seen by millions on over 200 PBS stations across the U.S. and abroad. Winner of the ASCAP Television Broadcast Award, the film is available with bonus performances on DVD, Blu-ray, and streaming on Amazon and PBS Passport. Watch the trailer at: www.sharonisbintroubadour.com Other recent national performances on PBS include the Billy Joel Gershwin Prize with Josh Groban, and Tavis Smiley. A frequent guest on NPR’s All Things Considered and A Prairie Home Companion, Isbin has been featured on television throughout the world, including CBS Sunday Morning, Showtime’s The L Word, and as soloist on the GRAMMY-nominated soundtrack of Scorsese’s Oscar-winning The Departed. She performed at Ground Zero for the first internationally televised 9/11 memorial, in concert at the White House by invitation of President Obama, and as the only classical artist in the 2010 GRAMMY Awards. She has been profiled in periodicals from People to Elle, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, as well as appearing on the covers of over 50 magazines.
For more, visit https://www.sharonisbin.com/biography.html
Pacifica Quartet
Simin Ganatra, violin
Austin Hartman, violin
Mark Holloway, viola
Brandon Vamos, cello
Formed in 1994, the Pacifica Quartet quickly won chamber music’s top competitions, including the 1998 Naumburg Chamber Music Award. In 2002 the ensemble was honored with Chamber Music America’s Cleveland Quartet Award and the appointment to Lincoln Center’s The Bowers Program. In 2006, the quartet was awarded a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. With its powerful energy and captivating, cohesive sound, the Pacifica has established itself as the embodiment of the senior American quartet sound.
The Pacifica Quartet has proven itself the preeminent interpreter of string quartet cycles, harnessing the group’s singular focus and incredible stamina to portray each composer’s evolution, often over the course of just a few days. Having given highly acclaimed performances of the complete Carter cycle in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and Houston; the Mendelssohn cycle in Napa, Australia, New York, and Pittsburgh; and the Beethoven cycle in New York, Denver, St. Paul, Chicago, Napa, and Tokyo (in an unprecedented presentation of five concerts in three days at Suntory Hall), the Quartet presented the monumental Shostakovich cycle in Chicago, New York, Montreal, and at London’s Wigmore Hall. The Quartet has been widely praised for these cycles, with critics calling the concerts “brilliant,” “astonishing,” “gripping,” and “breathtaking.”
An ardent advocate of contemporary music, the Pacifica Quartet commissions and performs many new works, often in partnership with the Music Accord consortium, London’s Wigmore Hall, and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall. The work – entitled Glitter, Doom, Shards, Memory – had its New York debut as part of the Chamber Music Society at Lincoln Center series.
In 2008 the Quartet released its GRAMMY Award-winning recording of Carter’s Quartets on the Naxos label; the 2009 release of Quartets Nos. 2, 3, and 4 completed the two-CD set. Cedille Records released the group’s four-CD recording of the entire Shostakovich cycle, paired with other contemporary Soviet works, to rave reviews: “The playing is nothing short of phenomenal.” (Daily Telegraph, London)
For more, visit https://www.pacificaquartet.com/
Program:
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741): Concerto in D Major for Guitar and Strings, RV 93 (arr. Pujol/ed. Isbin)
I. Allegro
II. Largo
III. Allegro
Sharon Isbin & Pacifica Quartet
Enrique Granados (1867-1916): Danza española No. 5 “Andaluza”
Francisco Tárrega (1852-1909): Capricho árabe
Agustín Barrios Mangoré (1885-1944): Waltz Opus 8 No. 4
Sharon Isbin
Joaquín Turina: La Oración del Torero, Opus 34
Astor Piazzolla: Four for Tango
Pacifica Quartet
INTERMISSION
Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904): String Quartet in F Major, Op. 96, “American”
I. Allegro ma non troppo
II. Lento
III. Molto vivace
IV. Finale: vivace ma non troppo
Pacifica Quartet
Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805): Guitar Quintet No. 4 in D major, G.448 , “Fandango”
I. Pastorale
II. Allegro maestoso
III. Grave assai-Fandango
Sharon Isbin & Pacifica Quartet