INTERVIEW: Guitarist Sharon Isbin finds ‘Affinity’ with her musical collaborations
Photo: Sharon Isbin’s new albums are Affinity and Strings for Peace. Photo courtesy of J. Henry Fair / Provided by official site with permission.
Classical guitarist Sharon Isbin, a Grammy winner and 2020 Musical America Worldwide Instrumentalist of the Year, recently released two albums showcasing her collaborations with several composers and musicians from around the world. Affinity features Isbin playing compositional works that were created for her intricate guitar playing, while Strings for Peace finds her connecting with sarod player Amjad Ali Khan and his two sons for a set of songs that detail the creative offerings of Northern Indian music.
“So the first album, Strings for Peace, is a collaboration that has really been nurtured from, I would say, over 10 years ago and I received a message from Amjad Ali Khan, who is the foremost sarod player in India, really a legendary artist,” Isbin said in a recent phone interview. “His family is from six generations of sarod players, and his two sons are carrying that on now with the seventh generation. So he had contacted me over 10 years ago to see if we could collaborate. What developed was a beautiful friendship, but it took all of this time until now to actually perform together.”
The sarod is a stringed instrument that is a cousin to the sitar. Khan is a preeminent interpreter of the instrument, but having the sound translate to Isbin’s guitar work was challenging. Khan had to notate for an instrument that is essentially passed down in an oral tradition — an object that has no frets and has a unique pitch system.
“And North Indian classical music, of course, is very different from the western classical music that I play,” Isbin said. “So finding someone who could write down, capture the improvisational aspects … and find a way to combine the two instruments that would bring out the best in both, it took time for him to find a person who could do that, and he did a couple years ago with a student of his who is studying North Indian classical music with him. And this is someone who has trained in jazz and classical guitar and Indian music and improvisation. He turned out to be the ideal collaborator to give me the scores, so all of a sudden after 10 years of friendship, one day in November of 2018 a series of ragas appeared in my inbox.”
Isbin listened to the compositions and studied the scores, and was overwhelmed by the beauty of the creation. Her collaborators in India were so happy with her enjoyment of the music — especially since they had already booked music halls in Mumbai, Calcutta and Delhi, and they wanted her to travel to the country in two months for the concerts.
“We figured let’s just go with it, so I had to move mountains really to change my whole schedule to make it possible,” she said. “And I did so because I was just overwhelmed by the beauty of the music, and I, of course, had come to really love as a friend, Amjad, and his sons, Amaan and Ayaan. So it was coming from a very organic and genuine place in me, and I had always loved Indian classical music since I was in college, but never imagined I’d actually be playing it. So I dove head first into this, arrived a few days early in India to rehearse with them, and it has turned out to be one of the most enriching and beautiful experiences I had in a collaboration and in a totally new genre.”
The guitarist, who was born in Minneapolis, has stretched her musical horizons with many unique collaborations throughout her career. She is at home with an orchestra on stage, but she also interprets flamenco music and works with rock guitarists like Steve Vai and Nancy Wilson of Heart. She has also performed jazz with some of the greats, including Stanley Jordan.
“So I wasn’t afraid of the intermingling of the instruments coming from such different places and sounds,” Isbin said of her collaboration with Khan. “I was more concerned about would I have time to learn the music, and I just had to completely immerse myself in doing so. And it was really a revelation. I felt it gave me new insight into playing Spanish music that I had played all my life because I was suddenly hearing the relationship with Indian music, and when you think about the Indian gypsies who migrated hundreds of years ago across different lands, many of them landed in Spain and became part of the flamenco movement that has so informed Spanish music and the culture of our time. It is really for me an amazing awakening to an even greater worldview than I had before, which already was quite wide.”
Their concerts in India were “marvelous,” in Isbin’s words. They performed in February 2019 and knew almost immediately that they had to record their efforts, so Isbin booked a hall for April 2019 in New York City. This time the Khan family and tabla player Amit Kavthekar were going to fly to her hometown for the sessions.
“It was mixed and mastered by an amazing person in India who also plays the tabla and has done many Bollywood films, so his sense of ear and his knowledge of the music proved invaluable in translating this to an album,” she said. “So it was something also that they named Strings for Peace a year ago, and it had to do with their embrace of the idea of humanity as one race and the potential for harmony and unity of all kinds of people from different lands, from different religions, from different belief systems — that is so important in our world today. We had no idea that the album would be released at a time that the world would be suffering from the effects of an extraordinary and damaging and devastating pandemic where so many people would be in harm’s way and needing healing and comfort from music more than ever.”
Isbin, subject of the PBS documentary Sharon Isbin: Troubadour, understands that many of her listeners will be hearing the sounds of the sarod for the first time on the album. She even admitted that a few years ago the instrument was not on her musical radar screen, but her career has always been one of discovery.
“People have been really excited about it, even from the jazz world, the classical world,” she said of the feedback for the album. “And the sounds and the way that he, Amjad Ali Khan, composed these works for us to do together, the way he has used his skill, his genius in understanding the phrasing and the pacing and the music and creating something that no one’s done before, that part is always exciting to me, to be part of a project that is new and ground-breaking.”
If that album weren’t time-consuming enough, Isbin, who has soloed with more than 200 orchestras throughout the world, also recently released Affinity, which showcases compositions that were specifically written for her over the years. There are five composers featured on the recording, which evolved over several years.
“For example, the centerpiece of the album is a concerto that Chris Brubeck, son of Dave Brubeck, wrote for me in 2015, which I premiered at that time with the Maryland Symphony Orchestra,” the guitarist said. “Chris knew that I loved playing different styles of music and collaborating with different people, so the idea of Affinity was not only a connection between me and the composer in our shared affinity for each other and our art, but also different cultures and styles.”
In some ways, Affinity and Strings for Peace are tied together by these international collaborations and journeys into new genres and new sounds. For Isbin, it’s just another day at the office.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Sharon Isbin’s two new albums are Affinity and Strings for Peace. Click here for more information.
