Sharon Isbin

Sharon Isbin (born in Minneapolis) is a classical guitarist and the founding director of the guitar department at the Juilliard School. Personal life and education Sharon Isbin was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to attorney Katherine Brudnoy and Herbert S. Isbin, a nuclear scientist and professor at the University of Minnesota. She began her guitar studies at age nine with Aldo Minella in Varese, Italy. She later studied with Jeffrey Van, Sophocles Papas, Andrés Segovia, Oscar Ghiglia, Alirio Díaz and for ten years with the noted keyboard artist and Bach scholar Rosalyn Tureck. Isbin collaborated with Tureck in preparing landmark first performance editions of the Bach lute suites for guitar, published by G Schirmer, and recorded by Isbin as Complete Bach Lute Suites on Warner Classics. Isbin created and directs the guitar departments at the Aspen Music Festival and the Juilliard School. She began practicing Transcendental Meditation at age 17. She received a B.A. cum laude from Yale University and a Master of Music (M.M.) from the Yale School of Music. In 1995 Isbin came out as a lesbian in a profile by Out magazine. She wanted to come out a year earlier but her manager told her not to, only changing their mind after k.d. lang and Melissa Etheridge found success as out musicians the following year.