00:04When people make things look effortless, that's when you know they're really good.
00:08You know, when they make it look easy.
00:16Oh, she's so intense.
00:19The greatest classical guitar player in the world.
00:24Sharon's father promised her that if she'd practice guitar for an hour,
00:28she could go outside and launch her model rockets.
00:34When I first heard Sharon, I was blown away by things she could do that I'd never heard another guitarist
00:39do.
00:45She's always the face of classical guitar these days.
00:51There's thousands of little girls out there who've seen Sharon who now know that that's open to them.
00:56That's huge.
01:01As a guitarist, I was always aware that it was an instrument that had to catch up.
01:07It was newer in the world.
01:10We didn't have Chopin, Mozart, Beethoven.
01:14I always felt like I want more. I want more to play.
01:18Sharon must have come over to me at a party and said,
01:20Hi, I'm Sharon Espin. I want a concerto.
01:22What I said was, would you consider writing a piece for me?
01:26And he said, I'm a little busy right now. Call me next year.
01:29She persisted.
01:31Year after year after eight years.
01:36I know absolutely nothing about the guitarist.
01:39I had good reason to say no.
01:42I said, how am I going to get this guy to write for me?
01:44It's so sad here.
01:46I suddenly thought, why not the French troubadours?
01:49I'll be the troubadour.
01:51Yeah.
01:53So I listened to troubadour music and I found things about it that I could adopt into a set of
01:59variations, concerto.
02:12So what do I think of when I do that? What is that coming from?
02:15Whenever I'm working with a composer and they're writing something new, I've never heard before.
02:20It's a gamble.
02:21You don't know what's going to happen. You don't know if you're even going to like it.
02:24It's a whistle.
02:27Tan Dun said, I really like the idea of writing something that would combine the history of the Spanish guitar
02:38with the ancient Chinese lute or pipa.
02:45She never says no to me. I try whatever I want to try.
02:50Tin, tin, tin, tin, tin, tin.
03:05Christopher Rouse teaches at Juilliard and is one of the leading composers of his generation.
03:11And I'm sure she tackled him in the hall and said, I'm not letting you up until you write me
03:15a concerto.
03:17One of the things I remember asking you to do was to write something that had not only virtuosity, but
03:24something that would be really, really beautiful and meltingly lyrical.
03:40I'm really proud when I can say I've done this concerto by Chris almost 60 times.
03:47It's really great to be able to give birth to something and nurture it through its lifetime.
03:54If you should Google the words classical guitar female, one name, Sharon Isbin. She's here with us tonight.
04:07You know, there's always a duality with this instrument and being a woman playing it.
04:13In the guitar world, I always had to fight as a woman.
04:16And in the music world, I always had to fight as a guitarist.
04:19I've been training a lot, man.
04:24According to the Aunt Angela, he knows.
04:27You know, it's so difficult to play.
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