The interest in crossover projects among classical musicians shows no signs of abating, and while the results are sometimes less than convincing, in the case of the guitar – that crossover instrument par excellence – it almost always comes off. As it does here, and quite spectacularly, with classical guitarist Sharon Isbin joined by the great Joan Baez and fiddler Mark O’Connor for a journey from the Old World to the New. A multitracked Isbin opens with four Renaissance lute duets, using all the colours available to a modern guitarist to capture the full flavour of the music, before switching seamlessly to folksong mode for “The Drunken Sailor” (Ireland) and “Wild Mountain Thyme” (Scotland) arranged by Edward Flower. American composer and guitarist Andrew York’s folk-influenced Andecy then provides, as Isbin writes in her booklet-note, “the perfect bridge from folk music of the British Isles to that of the New World”.

The remainder of the disc comprises knockout renditions of “Wayfaring Stranger” and John Jacob Niles’s “Go ’way from my window” by Baez and Isbin interspersed with two world premiere recordings, John Duarte’s evocative Joan Baez Suite for solo guitar and O’Connor’s arrangement for violin and guitar of his Strings & Threads Suite, originally for solo violin.

Such is the musical sympathy and understanding displayed by all three performers here that, at the risk of condoning both bigamy and the reckless use of clichés, this is a marriage made in heaven.