Grammy Award winner Sharon Isbin happily captured audiences during her spellbinding classical guitar performance Saturday night at the Spaulding Auditorium. Her virtuosity on the instrument, which she cradled in her arms, was obvious; Isbin's left hand effortlessly flew up and down the frets as her right hand performed intricately complex finger-picking and strums.
Isbin sat alone in the middle of the stage, the lights muted, and talked to the audience as she occasionally tuned her guitar. The only issue was figuring out when to applaud, as Isbin's performance was fraught with pregnant pauses and notes left shivering in the empty air.
Many of the songs in her repertoire were hypnotic, Latin-inspired pieces: In "Recuerdos de la Alhambra," and "Asturia," the audience was transported to Spain as Isbin's fingers alternately plucked the strings gently and used violent strums and stomps in the flamenco style. With the tremolo of "Recuerdos," the cascade of notes pouring out of the instrument perfectly imitated the soft waterfalls of a fountain in Grenada, composer Francisco Tarrega's inspiration for the piece.
One of her most audience-pleasing pieces, however, was her more American fare, the "Joan Baez Suite," which incorporated a medley of traditional folk and blues songs arranged by John Duarte for classical guitar. Her version of the rock classic "House of the Rising Sun," was a fresh take on the popular recording by The Animals.
The most musically fascinating piece was "Seven Desires for Guitar," written by Chinese composer Tan Dun for Isbin, in which two very different musical traditions -- Spanish flamenco guitar and Chinese pipa -- are interwoven. Isbin bent the pitches expressively so that the wild, heavy flamenco strums turned into mysterious, Eastern-flavored strokes.
Isbin ended the performance with the lazy, flowing "Waltz Op. 8, No. 4" by Augustin Barrios Mangor, a Latin American piece influenced by Chopin and other Romantic composers. The audience, which remained hushed until the final, violent strum, when the audience stood in ovation.
