Multiple GRAMMY Award-winning guitarist Sharon Isbin who will be featured at Kean University’s Kean Stage Series on Friday, April 5 at 7:30 pm. The concert will take place at Kean University’s East Campus’ Enslow Hall, 215 North Avenue in Hillside, New Jersey. Isbin will be joined by guest artist, Brazilian jazz guitarist and Latin GRAMMY winner Romero Lubambo. Tickets are $40-$60 with discounted student tickets the week of the show and can be purchased at the Kean Stage Box Office in Wilkins Theatre on Kean’s Main Campus, 1000 Morris Avenue in Union, by phone at (908) 737 7469, or online at www.keanstage.com.
Isbin will be joined by Brazilian jazz guitarist Romero Lubambo, who was Isbin’s guest on her Guitar Passions release and tour and included in the award-winning documentary Sharon Isbin: Troubadour. They share a lyrical sensibility that makes their duets a natural elision of improvisation, classical music, and cross-cultural exploration and their New York performance last spring for an audience of 1400 had press exclaiming, “the audience was amazed at the pair’s sensitivity, technique, and chemistry.” The program will feature a combination of South American and Spanish flavored classical, jazz and bossa-nova featuring solos and duos by Albéniz, Granados, Tárrega, Falla, Rodrigo, Lubambo and Vincente Amigo, among others.
Acclaimed as “the pre-eminent guitarist of our time,” Ms. Isbin has been the soloist with over 170 orchestras and given sold-out performances in the world’s finest halls. Recent highlights include a concerto written for her by Chris Brubeck which she recorded this fall, a commission for her by Carnegie Hall for their 125th anniversary, a 21-city Guitar Passions tour with jazz greats Stanley Jordan and Romero Lubambo, triumphant performances with the Detroit Symphony, Montreal Symphony and National Symphony, as well as sold-out concerts at the Kennedy Center, Kimmel Center, Carnegie Hall and the Aspen Music Festival. Her most recent Carnegie Hall appearances included collaborations with Sting, Katy Perry, and Jerry Seinfeld and in recital with Isabel Leonard. Last month, Isbin made her debut in India on a nation-wide tour performing ragas for guitar and sarod composed for her by the legendary Amjad Ali Khan, and they will tour the US in 2020 with sarod masters Amaan and Ayaan Ali Bangash.
Her stunning and historic new GRAMMY-winning (2018 Producer of the Year, Classical) CD, Alma Española with Isabel Leonard, is the first all-Spanish art song album with guitar of its kind in 40 years. Her recording with the Pacifica Quartet of Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Boccherini and Vivaldi will be released in September 2019.
Sharon Isbin is the subject of an exciting one-hour documentary presented by American Public Television. Seen by millions on over 200 PBS stations throughout the US, it is also available on DVD/Blu-ray and won the 2015 ASCAP Television Broadcast Award. Sharon Isbin: Troubadour paints the portrait of a trailblazing performer and teacher who over the course of her career has broken through numerous barriers to rise to the top of a traditionally male-dominated field. The following is a dedicated website where you can view the trailer, read rave reviews, and see detailed broadcast dates: www.SharonIsbinTroubadour.com
Her PBS performances also include the Billy Joel Gershwin Prize and Tavis Smiley – view:
Like Alma Española, her other latest of 25 recordings, 5 Classic Albums, and Guitar Passions, have also been #1 bestsellers. Her 2010 GRAMMY-winning Journey to the New World spent 63 consecutive weeks on top Billboard charts, and her Rodrigo Aranjuez with the New York Philharmonic, their only recording with guitar, received a Latin GRAMMY nomination.