J Henry Fair
Isbin: “It’s like coming home.”
Sharon Isbin, winner of multiple Grammy awards and chair of Juilliard’s guitar department, will return to Madison Nov. 17-19 as the guest soloist with the Madison Symphony Orchestra.
Isbin will star in Joaquín Rodrigo’s passionate masterpiece, Concierto de Aranjuez, and Chris Brubeck’s multifaceted Affinity. Dubbed “the preeminent guitarist of our time” by Boston magazine, Isbin last performed with the MSO in 2003.
“It will be a joy to come back and play with the wonderful Madison Symphony Orchestra and [conductor] John DeMain, who’s fantastic,” she says. “I look forward to connecting with the Madison audience again. It’s like coming home.”
Isbin was born in Minnesota, and studied at Yale University. During her storied 45-year career, she has reached out to composers and asked that they write music for guitar to help grow the instrument’s concert repertoire. Those efforts have yielded a treasure trove of 20 works from composers, including John Corigliano, Christopher Rouse and Tan Dun. When she commissioned Brubeck for a guitar concerto, the result was Affinity, composed in 2015.
Brubeck is the son of the late great jazz pianist, Dave Brubeck, and Affinity is steeped in the jazz tradition. “It has a wonderful groove and uses the guitar in a very virtuosic way,” says Isbin. “Its slow section is from a ballad that Dave Brubeck wrote.” With its nod to American, European and Middle Eastern music, Affinity has enjoyed a wide, admiring audience.
Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo wrote Concierto de Aranjuez in 1939 during the Spanish Civil War. During that time, Rodrigo’s pregnant wife became seriously ill and lost a child. Isbin met Rodrigo and his wife in their home in Madrid in 1979 and studied the score of Aranjuez with him. “The Concierto is filled with longing, jubilation and loss,” she says. “At the end of its poignant slow movement, there’s a magical moment when we hear harmonics from the guitar rise higher and higher, representing the soul of the Rodrigos’ child ascending.”
Also included on this program is ballet music from Aaron Copland’s suite from Billy the Kid, with its fresh cowboy swagger, and Manuel de Falla’s humorous score for El sombrero de tres picos (The Three-Cornered Hat).
This concert is one of the most diverse in the MSO season, offering a glowing contrast of styles and a chance to explore exotic places through the magic of music.
