Guitar star.

Byline: Bob Keefer The Register-Guard

CONCERT PREVIEW Viva Espana What: Classical guitarist Sharon Isbin appears in concert with the Oregon Mozart Players Program: Mozart's Overture to ``Don Giovanni''; Rodrigo's ``Fantasia para un gentilhombre'' and ``Concierto de Aranjues''; de Falla's Suite from `El Amor Brujo'

Two concerts: 8 p.m. May 6 at the Hult Center's Soreng Theater, Seventh and Willamette Street 2:20 p.m. May 7 at UO's Beall Concert Hall, 961 E. 18th Ave. Tickets: $16 to $28 through the Hult box office, 682-5000

RECITAL PREVIEW Sharon Isbin What: Classical guitarist in recital Program: Folk-inspired guitar works by John Duarte, Leo Brouwer, Isaac Albeniz and others Where: Beall Concert Hall When: 8 p.m. May 4 Tickets: $15 to $25 through the Hult box office, 682-5000

Sharon Isbin is at the very top of the classical guitar game. She's been given the "best classical guitarist" award by Guitar Player magazine. She's won music competitions in cities as diverse as Madrid, Toronto and Munich, and has performed with orchestras around the world.

Along the way she's been a "cover girl," as her Web site describes it, on more than 30 magazines - OK, they all have names like "Acoustic Guitar" and "Frets."

And she's been written about in better-read publications such as Town & Country, the Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal and Elle Magazine.

Now she's coming to Eugene, where she'll play in concert not once but twice next week with the Oregon Mozart Players, and also perform a solo recital while she's here.

``I think they are going to milk me for everything they can get,'' she said with a laugh, during a phone interview from her home in New York. ``But you know Glen (Cortese, the Mozart Players' musical director) and I have worked together before. He is a total delight.''

Isbin grew up in Minnesota, but her love of the guitar began at age 9, when her family lived in Italy for a year. Her brother had signed up for guitar lessons, thinking they were of the rock 'n' roll variety, and when he found out otherwise Sharon went in his stead. By age 14 she was performing and winning awards.

She has studied with Andres Segovia and Oscar Ghiglia - though she has said her only regular teachers since she was a teen have been a mirror and a tape recorder - and has bachelor's and master's degrees from Yale University. She is director of the Juilliard School's guitar department, which she founded in 1989.

``In her hands the guitar takes on the precision of a diamond, each note a clear, shining facet that catches, prismlike, a glint of the spectrum,'' The New York Times wrote in 2001. ``Her playing evokes Andres Segovia's observation that the classical guitar is `an orchestra seen through the wrong end of a telescope.' '

Isbin had worked through her career to expand the scope of classical guitar. She has performed with Paul Winter and with rocker Steve Vai.

At her concert appearance with the Mozart Players, Isbin will perform works by the late Joaquin Rodrigo, a friend for 20 years.

The Spanish composer wrote part of "Concierto de Aranjuez," a difficult and dazzling performance piece, after his wife suffered a miscarriage in 1939. Isbin said you don't need to know the story behind the composition to appreciate its beauty.

``It is a work that in any case is easy to relate to emotionally,'' she said, ``because it has such a sense of longing and passion and nostalgia and loss and beauty and transcendence that it is the essence of the Spanish soul.''

Another piece she will play in Eugene - at the separate recital of folk-inspired guitar works - is John Duarte's ``Joan Baez Suite,'' which Isbin herself commissioned in 2002.

The suite brings together the melodies from a number of traditional ballads and other songs done by Baez, from "Barbara Allen" and "House of the Rising Sun" to "The Unquiet Grave."

The suite is featured on Isbin's Grammy winning recording "Dreams of a World."

The only limit to Isbin's musical palate is her desire to do the music justice.

"Whatever I do, that is something I am able to do well," she said. "If I do a crossover collaboration it will involve a presentation I feel totally comfortable with."

She doesn't play blues, though. And about the only list of top guitarists you won't find Isbin's name on is Rolling Stone's ``The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time,'' which starts off with Jim Hendrix and works its way through names such as Eric Clapton and B.B. King. "I haven't heard of that one," she said.

CAPTION(S):

Sharon Isbin's performance in concert will include music by Joaquin Rodrigo, while her solo recital will feature melodies inspired by songs made popular by folk singer Joan Baez. Gary Tepfer / The Associated Press