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Sharon Robinson

CELLIST

“Robinson captivated with her expressiveness and sense of timing, whether it was her use of rubato in solo phrases or her riveting opening to the finale [Brahms: Double Concerto]."

 

INDIANAPOLIS SYMPHONY

INDIANAPOLIS STAR

BIOGRAPHY

Winner of the Avery Fisher Recital Award, the Piatigorsky Memorial Award, the Pro Musicis Award, and a Grammy Nominee, cellist Sharon Robinson is recognized worldwide as a consummate artist and one of the most outstanding musicians of our time. Whether as a recitalist, soloist with orchestra, or member of the world-famous Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, critics, audiences and fellow musicians respond to what the Indianapolis Star has called "A cellist who has simply been given the soul of Caruso." Her guest appearances with orchestras include the Philadelphia and Minnesota orchestras, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Boston, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Dallas, Houston, National, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and San Francisco symphonies, and in Europe, the London Symphony, Helsinki Philharmonic, Zürich's Tonhalle Orchestra, and the English, Scottish, and Franz Liszt chamber orchestras. Revered for her chamber music performances, Ms. Robinson co-founded the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio forty years ago. She collaborated with Rudolf Serkin and Alexander Schneider at the Marlboro Music Festival and has appeared with some of the musical giants of our time, including Isaac Stern, Leon Fleisher, Rudolf Firkušný, Yo-Yo Ma, Engene Istomin, Itzhak Perlman, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Mstislav Rostropovich, Pinchas Zukerman, André Watts, Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, and the Emerson, Guarneri, Miami, Juilliard, Cavani, Orion, and Tokyo Quartets. Committed to the music of our time, Sharon Robinson works closely with many of today's leading composers, including Richard Danielpour, Katherine Hoover, Leon Kirchner, David Ludwig, Arvo Pärt, André Previn, Ned Rorem, Stanley Silverman, Andy Stein, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, and Joan Tower. She is admired for consortium building, putting together multiple presenters as co-commissioners of both chamber music works and concertos with orchestra. For the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio's 35th anniversary, she gathered twelve presenters to commission Ellen Taaffe Zwilich's Quintet, and for the 35th anniversary of her marriage to Jaime Laredo, she compiled eight co-commissioners for Richard Danielpour's Inventions on a Marriage. Ms. Robinson and Jaime Laredo recently premiered André Previn’s Double Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra, performing with the Orchestras of Cincinnati, Toronto, Detroit, Kansas City, Austin, and the Pacific Symphony in Orange County, California. In Europe, they premiered the Previn with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie. Currently, the pair are celebrating their 40 years of marriage by assembling a coalition of orchestras to co-commission a new Double Concerto for them by Chris Brubeck. Sharon Robinson divides her time among solo engagements, teaching, performing with her husband, violinist and conductor Jaime Laredo, and touring with the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio. As of the Fall of 2012, she joined the renowned instrumental and chamber music faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music. She previously taught at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. Highly sought after for her dynamic master classes, she brings insight to her teaching from the rare combination of her lifetime experiences as member of the Houston Symphony Orchestra, the Ciompi String Quartet of Duke University, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, plus countless solo recitals and concerto performances. In 2009, Ms. Robinson, along with Mr. Laredo, became co-Artistic Director of the famed Linton Chamber Music Series in Cincinnati, Ohio. This important forum gathers musicians from around the globe in combination with soloists and members of the stellar Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra to explore beloved and innovative chamber works. The couple are also co-artistic directors of the Hudson Valley Chamber Music Circle at Bard College, and Artistic Advisors for the Brattleboro Music Center in Vermont. Sharon Robinson's television appearances have included The Tonight Show, the Today Show, the Kennedy Center Honors on CBS, a profile on CBS Sunday Morning, plus guest starring with Garrison Keillor on the Prairie Home Companion on NPR. Equally impressive are her festival engagements, which include Spoleto, Mostly Mozart, Seoul Spring Festival, Aspen, Marlboro, London's South Bank, Madeira, Granada, Edinburgh, and Prague's Autumn Festival where she performed the Dvorák Cello Concerto at the famous Dvorák Hall. Ms. Robinson's CDs include the Vivaldi Cello Sonatas on Vox and a Grenadilla disc of solo cello works by Debussy, Fauré, and Rorem. The Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio has recorded chamber works of Ravel; Legacies, a disc of commissioned works; and a two-CD set of the complete piano trios and sonatas by Shostakovich for KOCH International Classics. The Trio has also recorded the complete piano trios of Brahms and Mendelssohn for Vox as well as the Beethoven Triple Concerto for Chandos. Additionally, KOCH released Conversations, a Laredo/Robinson CD featuring duos by Handel, Gliere, Kodály, and a work composed for them by David Ott. Ms. Robinson received a Grammy nomination for the Two Brahms Sextets CD with Isaac Stern, Cho-Liang Lin, Jaime Laredo, Michael Tree, and Yo-Yo Ma. To celebrate Schubert's anniversary, that same ensemble (sans Michael Tree) recorded Schubert's great Cello Quintet for Sony, as well. In August 2002 KOCH released an all-Zwilich Concerto CD (including a double concerto written for Robinson and Laredo, and a triple concerto written for the Trio). Other releases included the Trio's 4-CD all-Beethoven project, and Danielpour's In the Arms of the Beloved. In 2006, Naxos released the Double Concerto by Ned Rorem, performed by Ms. Robinson and Mr. Laredo. Recently, BRIDGE Records released Triple Doubles, an album of three new Double Concertos written for the Duo by Daron Hagen, Richard Danielpour, and David Ludwig, plus the complete Schubert Trios with the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio.

MEDIA

Sharon Robinson

Sharon Robinson

PRESS ACCLAIM

CINCINNATI SYMPHONY

“Robinson made handy work of the Tchaikovsky showpiece [Rococo Variations], which calls for everything in the cellist’s bag of tricks, from thumb position acrobatics to high harmonics.”

CINCINNATI POST

INDIANAPOLIS SYMPHONY

“Robinson captivated with her expressiveness and sense of timing, whether it was her use of rubato in solo phrases or her riveting opening to the finale." [Brahms Double Concerto]

INDIANAPOLIS STAR

ST. PAUL CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

“Playing solo parts written for them, Laredo and Robinson demonstrated a wedding of technique and artistry in which music and performer are one indivisible entity." [Rorem Double Concerto]

ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS

PRINCE WILLIAM SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

“Sharon Robinson was the cello soloist, and her performance was simply masterful." [Elgar Concerto]

WASHINGTON POST

BALTIMORE RECITAL

“The rest of the sonata [Shostakovich] was equally impressive; a first movement that was insouciant, a soulful slow movement and a final one in which her playing spoke eloquently throughout, particularly at whisper-soft levels.”

BALTIMORE SUN


92nd STREET Y

“[Robinson] was memorable throughout the concert, from the anxious curlicues in the first movement of Zwilich’s Piano Trio, through her ascent to icy heights at the end of Arvo Pärt’s “Mozart-Adagio”, to an assertive yet natural rendition of the tender cello line in the Adagio of Brahms’s Piano Trio in B, Op. 8.”

NEW YORK TIMES

REPERTOIRE LIST

BEETHOVEN

Triple Concerto 

BERNSTEIN

Mass: Three Meditations

BLOCH

Schelomo (Rhapsodie hebraique)

 

BOCCHERINI

Concerto in B-flat

BRAGATO

Tango for Cello and Strings

BRAHMS

Concerto for Violin and Cello in A Minor, Op. 102

 

BRUCH

Kol Nidrei, Op. 47

CRESTON

Sadhana

 

DANIELPOUR

In the Arms of the Beloved

 

DVORÁK

Concerto in B Minor, Op. 104

 

ELGAR

Concerto in E Minor, Op. 85

FAURÉ

Elégie

HALLGRIMSSON

Concerto

 

HAYDN

Concerti Nos. 1 and 2

 

HERBERT

Concerto No. 2

 

HOOVER

Stitch-te-Naku

 

KABALEVSKY

Concerto No. 1

KIRCHNER

Concerto

Double Concerto for Violin, Cello and Winds

 

LALO

Concerto

 

OTT

Concerto for Two Cellos

Double Concerto

Triple Concerto

 

ROREM

Concerto for Violin and Cello

 

RÓZSA

Sinfonia Concertante

 

SAINT-SAËNS

Concerto

 

SCHUMAN

Song of Orpheus

 

SCHUMANN

Concerto

 

SHOSTAKOVICH

Concerto No. 1

 

SHULMAN

Concerto

Kol Nidrei

 

TCHAIKOVSKY

Rococo Variations

 

VIVALDI

Various concerti

 

WALTON

Concerto

 

WARD

Dialogues for Violin, Cello and Orchestra

 

ZWILICH

Double Concerto

Triple Concerto

DISCOGRAPHY

BEETHOVEN Triple Concerto                                                       English Chamber Orchestra/Alexander Gibson, conductor

Jaime Laredo, violin; Joseph Kalichstein, piano

Chandos

 

BEETHOVEN Piano Trios                                                       Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio                                                               

Arabesque

 

BRAHMS Sextets

Isaac Stern, violin; Cho-Liang Lin, violin; Jaime Laredo, viola;

Michael Tree, viola; Yo-Yo Ma, cello

Sony

BRAHMS, MENDELSSOHN , DVORÁK Piano Trios  

Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio 

Moss Music

 

HAYDN Piano Trios

Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio

Dorian

 

MENDELSSOHN String Quintets

Jaime Laredo, violin; Ani Kavafian, violin; Heiichiro Ohyama, viola; Kim Kashkashian, viola

Sony

 

RAVEL Chamber Works                                                           Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio

Arabesque

 

ROREM Double Concerto for Violin and Cello                         Jaime Laredo, violin

Naxos

 

SCHUBERT Cello Quintet

BOCCHERINI E Major Quintet

Isaac Stern, violin; Cho-Liang Lin, violin; Jaime Laredo, viola; Yo-Yo Ma, cello

Sony

  

SHOSTAKOVICH Sonatas and Trios

Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio

Arabesque

 

ZWILICH Double Concerto; Triple Concerto

Florida State University Orchestra

Michael Stern, conductor

Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio

Koch

 

ZWILICH Double Concerto

Louisville Orchestra

Lawrence Leighton Smith, conductor

Jaime Laredo, violin

First Editions

 

 

Various composers

Conversations: Duos for Violin and Cello                

Jaime Laredo, violin

Arabesque

 

 

Various composers

Legacies                                                                                  

Trios composed for the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio

Arabesque

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