VISI Faculty: Rena Sharon
"By
turns dreamer, adventurer, warrior, and wanderer.. few pianists can match
the deep compassion of her playing..Sharon captures it all" —Vancouver
Sun
Born in Montreal, Canada, Rena Sharon began her life in chamber music at the age of eight. Her early studies were with Professor Dorothy Morton, and she continued her training at the Eastman School and Indiana University. Principal teachers were Menahem Pressler and Gyorgy Sebok, Janos Starker, and Joseph Gingold.
Called "one of the finest musicians of her generation" and a "national treasure", she began concertizing throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe at the age of 19. In 1987 she was awarded "Best Pianist" diploma at the International Voice Competition of Rio de Janeiro. Among Canada's foremost chamber musicians, her performance spectrum also comprises solo recitals and concerti. The roster of distinguished artists with whom Ms. Sharon has performed includes Ben Heppner, Steven Isserlis, Gary Hoffman, Scott St. John, Pamela Frank, Sharon Kam, Steven Dann, Douglas Boyd, Kevin MacMillan, Richard Margison, Marina Piccinini, Shauna Rolston, James Somerville, Martin Beaver, James Ehnes, Susan Platts, Wendy Nielsen, Benjamin Butterfield, Amanda Forsyth, and Jerome Hines. Recent tours include performances in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Mexico with Jozef Luptak and Gabriela Demeterova, in Montreal and California with violin virtuoso Lara St. John.
Ms Sharon has travelled to Rwanda in 2005 and 2006 for performances and teaching, under the auspices of the Canadian consulate and distinguished physician and researcher Dr. Reva Adler.
As founder and Artistic Director of The Song Circle, an innovative performance company dedicated to the art of song, she has directed and co-written several theatre pieces, beginning with the "CBC Vancouver Salon" in 1997. That event, later described as "a sparkling evening of poignant delight, fun and unpredictable discovery, with an unmatched electricity and sense of community between performers and audience", brought together violinist Scott St. John, UBC student singers and pianists, actor Joey L'esperance as Erik Satie, and Frances Wainwright as hostess for a re-enactment of the Parisian fin-du-siecle salon scene. Subsequent productions "Hearts and Flowers", co-written with David Maggs, "CBC Radio Song Salon", "Songs of the Earth", script co-written with David Maggs, "Songs of the Heart" script by Leonard George, and "Homecoming", have earned praise for their fluid merge of script and song, magical atmosphere, and accessible blend of story-telling and music. The Song Circle was featured at the Vancouver Festival in August 2000 in "A Day of Song". Subsequent productions include the International Writers Festival in collaboration with distinguished Canadian author Bill Richardson, for the launch of his book "Waiting for Gertrude", and “The Song Circle Cafés”, with writer-director Kico Gonzales-Rizzo at the 2003 Festival Vancouver. Singers for these events included Benjamin Butterfield, Wendy Nielsen, Phoebe MacRae, Michael Colvin, Jean Stillwell, Lambroula Pappas, Alain Coulombe, Tyler Duncan, and a large cast of UBC students and alumni. A recent sold-out performance of “Hearts and Flowers” opened the 05-06 season of the distinguished “Virtuosi” series in Winnipeg, Canada. The Winnipeg Free Press described the event as “superb…a unique concert that tackles some of the myths about classical music head-on”…..the inimitable Rena Sharon had us in the palm of her hands”.
In addition to her concert schedule, Ms. Sharon also lectures extensively about Art Song. She has spoken to Vancouver audiences about "Die Schone Mullerin", "Winterreise", and “Dichterliebe", and participated in the Schubert and Brahms series on CBC radio for the 1997 commemorative celebration and the award-winning Schubert marathon in 2004 for Radio Canada produced by Sylvia l’Ecuyer. Best-known is her lecture entitled "I Love Lieder", an introduction to the collaborative process of poetry and music. Her charismatic communications about the art of music, described as "lightsome, witty, humourous, warm and accessible, yet profoundly passionate and evocative", have been likened in style to those of the late Leonard Bernstein. In November 2005 she participated in the Whistler Forum Summit on Collaborative Governance, presenting a lecture/demonstration on Chamber Music as a model of collborative co-creation.
Currently the Professor of Collaborative Piano Studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, she is also Artistic Co-Director of the Young Artist Experience (www.youngartistexperience.ca), an interdisciplinary chamber music camp for gifted teens which blends intense music study with a spectrum of explorations comprising art, science, humanities and social responsibility. She has also been on the faculties of summer institutes in Winnipeg, Seattle, Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, Victoria, the Czech Republic, and the Banff Centre.
In February 2000 she was awarded the prestigious "Dean of Arts Award", presented to one member of the UBC Faculty of Arts annually for excellence in teaching, research, and community outreach activities.
Ms. Sharon is heard regularly in performance on the CBC national radio, and has recorded on the Marquis, Finlandia, Brava, Summit, Sono, CBC-5000, and Boston Record labels.