Cellist Irene Sharp is an internationally acclaimed teacher on the faculties of the Mannes College of Music and the University of California at Berkeley. She maintains private studios in San Francisco, Palo Alto and New York City. Professor Emeritus at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Ms. Sharp has served on the faculties of Meadowmount School for Strings, Bowdoin Summer Music Festival, and Indiana University's String Academy. Ms. Sharp has worked with students in cities worldwide, including London, Salzburg, Hamburg, Tokyo, Taipei, Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Perth.
Ms. Sharp is Artistic Director of California Summer Music, a festival for outstanding young string players, pianists and composers, currently in its fourteenth summer in Northern California. She has been an invited speaker at the national meetings of the Music Teachers' National Association and the Music Educators' National Conference, and has given numerous teacher workshops worldwide.
In 1992, Ms. Sharp received an Outstanding Teacher award from ASTA. She has given master classes for American String Teachers Association (ASTA), European String Teachers Association, Australian String Teachers Association, and the Suzuki Association of America She collaborated with the late Margaret Rowell, and performed in Pablo Casals' master class in Berkeley, California.