Phillip Gainsley's Podcast

Sharon Isbin was named Musical America Worldwide’s 2020 Instrumentalist of the Year, the first guitarist ever to receive the honor in its 59-year award history. She was inducted into the 2023 Guitar Foundation of America Hall of Fame and received its Artistic Achievement Award.   She is “the pre-eminent guitarist of our time”, the winner of Guitar Player magazine’s Best Classical Guitarist award, and numerous other awards.

Sharon has appeared as soloist with over 200 orchestras and has given sold-out performances in many of the world’s finest halls across 40 countries, including New York’s Carnegie and Geffen Halls, Boston’s Symphony Hall, Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, London’s Barbican and Wigmore Halls, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Paris’ Châtelet, Vienna’s Musikverein, Munich’s Herkulessaal, Argentina’s Teatro Colón, and Madrid’s Teatro Real. 

She has been acclaimed for expanding the guitar repertoire with some of the finest new works of our time, and has premiered over 80 works written for her by world-renowned composers, including more concerti than any other guitarist, as well as numerous solo and chamber works.

Public television’s acclaimed one-hour documentary Sharon Isbin: Troubadour has been seen by millions on over 200 PBS stations across the U.S. and abroad.  Other recent national performances on PBS include the Billy Joel Gershwin Prize with Josh Groban, and Tavis Smiley.  And, she has a significant discography.  

Sharon Isbin has been practicing Transcendental Meditation since age 17 and donates her time to perform benefits for the David Lynch Foundation, along with Katy Perry, Sting, Hugh Jackman, Jerry Seinfeld and Jay Leno, to bring TM to at-risk communities. We’ll talk about that and more in this inspiring conversation.

 “If I ever stop finding music challenging and life-altering, I’ll quit and become an accountant.”  Not to worry.  Pianist Jonathan Biss, a world-renowned educator and critically-acclaimed author, cannot stop finding music challenging and life-altering.  Listening to him speak about Beethoven — or even Verdi, one gleans an obsession with greatness.  

At the age of 17, Jonathan attended the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Leon Fleisher, which proved a phenomenal learning experience.  While his life in music provides him with tremendous satisfaction, playing music remains ever a struggle. He regards it as a pleasure and privilege to live this struggle, and to share its results with other people.  As he puts it, “Doing justice to great music is an unattainable goal.”

His audio book, Unquiet, My Life With Beethoven is a must-hear.

Our conversation is as enlightening as it is entertaining.  Listen for yourself! 

Andreas Landin, Swedish baritone has worked, since his graduation from the Opera Academy at the Royal Opera in Copenhagen, as an opera singer in Scandinavia and in other theaters in Europe.  He has specialized in contemporary opera repertoire and has had more than 20 contemporary opera roles written for him, mostly by scandinavian composers and performed in the opera houses in Copenhagen, Malmö Opera and Gothenburg Opera among others.

He has also appeared in modern classic parts such as the count in Luce mie Traditrici by Sciarrino, The Emperor in Der Kaiser von Atlantis and the baritone in The four note opera.

Within the classic opera repertoire Andreas has sung parts as varied as Don Giovanni, Papageno, Marcello, and Silvio.

He has also had great success within the oratory repertoire and regularly perform the bass parts in most of the classic oratories by Bach, Handel, Brahms and Mozart.

In recent years Landin has partly moved into a heavier fach and sung parts like Scarpia in Tosca and the title role in Macbeth.

The musical Kristina is based on a series of four novels by Swedish author Vilhelm Moberg detailing a family's poverty-driven migration from Sweden to America in the mid-19th century.  On October 12, 1996, a concert version with the original cast was presented, in Swedish, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, as an opening event of the Plymouth Music Series  (now Vocal Essence) 1996–1997 season in Orchestra Hall, and the next day in Chisago Lakes High School in Lindstrom, Minnesota – the area where much of the events in Moberg's books took place and where the statue of the books' two main characters stands on the main street of the town.  In this episode, Philip discusses this milestone in the history of VocalEssence

Jeremy Denk is one of America’s foremost pianists.  He is also the recipient of both the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship and the Avery Fisher Prize, and he is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Jeremy is known for his interpretations of the music of American composer Charles Ives.

He is also known for his original and insightful writing on music. His New York Times best-selling memoir, Every Good Boy Does Fine was published to universal acclaim by Random House in 2022.  

His latest album of Mozart piano concertos was deemed “urgent and essential” by BBC Radio 3, while his recording of the Goldberg Variations reached No. 1 on the Billboard classical charts.

Sarah Hicks is the in-demand conductor across an array of genres, and as an educator, arranger, producer, writer and speaker committed to creating connections through music.

Sarah has worked extensively with all the major orchestras in the US and abroad. 

She is a specialist in film music and the film in concert genre.  

Sarah has acted as advisor on numerous projects for Disney Music Group and is a consultant and frequent collaborator at Disney Concerts. Since 2020, she has been the primary host and writer of “This is Minnesota Orchestra”, broadcast on Twin Cities PBS and streamed globally. 

She is a frequent guest lecturer and panelist, and was on faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music from 2000 to 2005 and staff conductor until 2012. Her presentation, “The Art of Conducting”, has illustrated collaborative leadership to numerous organizations, civic groups and corporations. 

Her interest in mental health and music led to the production of a 2019 concert titled “Music and the Mind.”  Her most recent project, "Music and Healing", is a collaboration with the Minnesota Orchestra. Available digitally, the project includes a concert, commissioned works, interviews, and conversations with neuroscientists, wellness experts and musicians.  

The Winchendon Music Festival is a non-profit concert series held in Winchendon, Massachusetts. The Festival showcases performances by international artists from a variety of genres including classical, folk, jazz, historical performance, and world music.

Concerts are free to the public, thanks to support from several local cultural councils, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Robinson Broadhurst Foundation, the Winchendon History & Cultural Center, and the First Congregational Church of Winchendon.

The Winchendon Music Festival presents solo, small ensemble, and chamber orchestral programs. 

The festival was founded in 2016 by multi-instrumentalist, scholar, and composer Andrew Arceci who was our guest on Episode 106, and who now joins us with guitarist Colin Davin, a performer in this season’s (2024) program.

As you will hear, performances for the Winchendon Music Festival take place at several venues around Winchendon.

Cello playing is at the center of Matthew Barley’s career, while his musical world has virtually no geographical, social or stylistic boundaries. His passions include improvisation, education, multi-genre music-making, electronics, and pioneering community programs.

Matthew is a world-renowned cellist who has performed in over 50 countries.

Matthew’s new music group, Between The Notes undertook over 60 creative community projects with young people and orchestra players around the world.

Matthew has given premieres by Pascal Dusapin, Dai Fujikura, Detlev Glanert, Thomas Larcher, James MacMillan, Roxana Panufnik, and recently a concerto by Misha Mullov-Abbado with a cello part that is more than half improvised, at the London Jazz Festival for the BBC.

His current project, Light Stories, is a new program for cello, electronics and visuals from Yeast Culture with much of the music written by him. 

He is also launching a new charity to run workshops using creative music and theatre to help university students with their mental health.

The 2023/24 season marked Chad Goodman’s inaugural year as music director of the Elgin Symphony Orchestra—only the fifth leader in the orchestra’s prestigious seven-decade history.

Chad also serves as artistic director of IlluminArts, Miami’s art song and chamber music concert series.  He curates site-specific classical music programs in collaboration with the leading museums, art galleries, and historic venues of Miami.

From 2019 to 2023, he was the Conducting Fellow of the New World Symphony, where he was the assistant conductor to Michael Tilson Thomas. In addition to leading the orchestra in more than fifty performances, Chad created the educational program “SPARK: How Composers Find Inspiration,” which blended engaging audience participation with captivating light design and videography.

He has served as an assistant conductor to the San Francisco Symphony, working alongside Michael Tilson Thomas, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Manfred Honeck, Daniel Harding, Elim Chan, Simone Young, and James Gaffigan, among others.

As you will hear, Chad also leads workshops that teach young musicians the business skills needed to navigate successfully the music world. Forbes praised his bold strides both on and off stage and hailed him as “An entrepreneur bringing innovation to classical music.” Last year, he published the book, You Earned a Music Degree. Now What?

Peter works extensively as a director of theater, musical theater, opera and new work development. He is the producing artistic director at Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, Florida. We recorded this conversation in January 2023, as he assumed that position.

Peter and I spoke on Episode 27 when he was artistic director of Theater Latté Da, a Twin Cities-based company.  Since the Theater Latté Da’s inception in 1992, Peter directed 92 main-stage productions, including 14 world premieres and 14 area premieres. In 2012, the company launched NEXT, a major new works initiative for the development of new music-theater. 

Peter was also prominent on our Merrily We Roll Along panel, Episode 73, as Theater Latté Da produced its highly successful rendering of Stephen Sondheim’s masterpiece.

He has also directed shows for other theater companies nationwide.

Peter has served  on the board of directors for the National Alliance for Musical Theatre. He has been as a panelist and evaluator for the Playwrights’ Center, the McKnight Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board and the National Alliance for Musical Theater’s Festival of New Musicals.