Schedule

Building on last year’s sold-out event, the New York Guitar Festival and WNYC’s New Sounds present a four-week series that features a diverse cast of guitar slingers performing newly commissioned works and special collaborations. The festival will take over The Greene Space stage every Thursday evening, from May 18 to June 8, featuring multiple short sets and onstage interviews with New Sounds host John Schaefer.  

The series begins with one of the world’s greatest classical guitarists, multiple Grammy-winner Sharon Isbin, and three of her outstanding Juilliard protégés, who collectively represent three continents: Alberta Khoury from Australia, Tengyue Zhang from China, and America’s Colin Davin. 

About Sharon Isbin:

Acclaimed for her extraordinary lyricism, technique and versatility, multiple GRAMMY Award winner Sharon Isbin has been hailed as “the pre-eminent guitarist of our time”. She is the winner of Guitar Player magazine’s “Best Classical Guitarist” award, and the Munich, Toronto and Madrid international competitions. She has appeared as soloist with over 170 orchestras and has given sold-out performances in the world’s finest halls, including New York’s Carnegie and Avery Fisher Halls, Boston’s Symphony Hall, Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center, London’s Barbican and Wigmore Halls, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Paris’ Châtelet, Vienna’s Musikverein, Munich’s Herkulessaal, Madrid’s Teatro Real and many others. She has served as Artistic Director/Soloist of festivals she created for Carnegie Hall, the Ordway Music Theatre (St. Paul), New York’s 92nd Street Y, and the acclaimed national radio series Guitarjam. A frequent guest on NPR’s All Things Considered and Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion, she has been profiled on television throughout the world, including CBS Sunday Morning and A&E, and was featured as soloist on the GRAMMY nominated soundtrack of Martin Scorsese’s Academy Award-winning The Departed. On September 11, 2002, Ms. Isbin performed at Ground Zero for the internationally televised memorial. Among other career highlights, she performed in concert at the White House for President and Mrs. Obama in 2009, and was the only classical artist to perform 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 cover of over 45 magazines. Her 2015 national television performances on PBS include the Billy Joel Gershwin Prize, Tavis Smiley, and American Public Television’s presentation of the acclaimed one-hour documentary Sharon Isbin: Troubadour seen by millions on nearly 200 PBS stations across the US, and the winner of the 2015 ASCAP Television Broadcast Award. The film was released with bonus performances on DVD/Blu-ray by Video Artists International. Watch the trailer at: www.sharonisbintroubadour.com 

 Ms. Isbin’s catalogue of over 25 recordings—from Baroque, Spanish/Latin and 20th Century to crossover and jazz-fusion—reflects remarkable versatility. Her latest releases, Sharon Isbin: 5 Classic Albums (Warner) and Sharon Isbin & Friends: Guitar Passions (Sony) with rock/jazz guests Steve Vai, Steve Morse, Heart’s Nancy Wilson and Stanley Jordan, have been #1 bestsellers on Amazon.com. Her 2010 GRAMMY Award-winning CD Journey to the New World with guests Joan Baez and Mark O’Connor spent 63 consecutive weeks on the top Billboard charts. Other GRAMMYs include her world premiere recording of concerti written for her by Christopher Rouse and Tan Dun, and Dreams of a World which made her the first classical guitarist in 28 years to receive the award. She received a Latin GRAMMY nomination for her disc of Rodrigo, Ponce and Villa-Lobos concerti with the New York Philharmonic—their first and only recording with a guitar soloist. Other honors include Germany's Echo Klassik Award and Gramophone's Recording of the Year. 

Sharon Isbin has been acclaimed for expanding the guitar repertoire with some of the finest new works of the century. She has commissioned and premiered more concerti than any other guitarist, and her American Landscapes with works written for her by Corigliano, Schwantner and Foss is the first-ever recording of American guitar concerti. Her world premieres in 2015 include Affinity: Concerto for Guitar & Orchestra composed for her by Chris Brubeck, and a song cycle by Richard Danielpour commissioned for her and mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard by Carnegie Hall for their 125th anniversary and by Chicago’s Harris Theater. 

Other recent highlights include tours with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Austria’s Tonkünstler Orchestra and Belgium’s Philharmonique de Liege, recitals and concerti in Carnegie Hall and Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center, a week of performances at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, MIDEM Classical Awards in Cannes, a 20-city Guitar Passions tour with Stanley Jordan and Romero Lubambo in 2014, and a sold out performance in Carnegie Hall with Sting, Katy Perry and Jerry Seinfeld in 2015 to benefit the David Lynch Foundation. 

Ms. Isbin appears as soloist with orchestras throughout the world, including the New York Philharmonic, National Symphony, Baltimore, Detroit, Houston, Dallas, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, St. Louis, Nashville, New Jersey, Louisville, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Phoenix, Buffalo and Utah Symphonies; Saint Paul, Los Angeles, Zurich, Scottish and Lausanne Chamber Orchestras; the London Symphony and Orchestre National de France; and BBC Scottish, Lisbon Gulbenkian, Prague, Milan Verdi, Belgrade, Mexico City, Jerusalem and Tokyo Symphonies. Her festival appearances include Mostly Mozart, Aspen, Ravinia, Grant Park, Interlochen, Santa Fe, Mexico City, Bermuda, Hong Kong, Montreux, Strasbourg, Paris, Athens, Istanbul, Ravenna, Prague and Budapest International Festivals. 

Sharon Isbin began her guitar studies at age nine in Italy, and later studied with Andrès Segovia and Oscar Ghiglia. A former student of Rosalyn Tureck, Ms. Isbin collaborated with the noted keyboardist in publishing and recording the first performance editions of the Bach lute suites for guitar (Warner Classics/ G. Schirmer). She is the author of the Classical Guitar Answer Book, and is Director of guitar departments at the Aspen Music Festival and The Juilliard School, which she created in 1989. Please visit her on Facebook, Twitter and www.sharonisbin.com