Our People:

Our Leadership          Our Faculty         Our Staff

Sharon Robinson

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 Lizst Chamber Orchestras.

Recently appointed to the renowned instrumental and chamber music faculty of Cleveland School of Music for Fall of 2012, Sharon Robinson divides her time between teaching, solo engagements, performing with her husband, violinist and conductor Jaime Laredo, and touring with the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio. She has previously taught at Jacobs School of Music and Indiana University since 2005. 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.

Committed to the music of our time, Sharon Robinson works closely with many of today's leading composers, including Ned Rorem, Leon Kirchner, Arvo Pärt, Stanley Silverman, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Joan Tower, David Ludwig, Katherine Hoover, Richard Danielpour and André Previn. She is admired for consortium building, putting together multiple presenters as co-comissioners 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 has compiled eight co-commissions for Richard Danielpour's "Duets."

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 also shares the co-artistic directorship of the Hudson Valley Chamber Music Circle at Bard College and is Artistic Advisors for the Brattleboro Music Center in Vermont.

Ms. 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 staring 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.

Born into a musical family (her father was a bass player, her mother a violinist and all her siblings are string players), Sharon Robinson gave her first concert when she was seven and has since received numerous honors and awards. As winner of the Avery Fisher Recital Award, she appeared on Lincoln Center's Great Performers series, giving the premiere of Ned Rorem's "After Reading Shakespeare."

Revered for her chamber music performances, Sharon Robinson co-founded the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio thirty-five years ago and she collaborated with Rudolf Serkin and Alexander Schneider at the Malboro Music Festival. She 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, Orion and Tokyo Quartets.

Sharon 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.

This season, in celebration of their 35th wedding anniversary, Sharon Robinson and Jaime Laredo have released an album entitled "Triple Doubles," consisting of three double concertos dedicated to the Duo: Daron Hagen's Masquerade, a new, fully-orchestrated version of Richard Danielpour's A Child's Reliquary, (originally written as a piano trio for the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio); and David Ludwig's Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra. The Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio also released the complete Schubert piano trios. Both albums were released by BRIDGE Records.

Sharon Robinson joined CIM's faculty in fall 2012.
 

Back to Faculty Listings.