Yolanda Kondonassis

American harpist Yolanda Kondonassis is among the world’s most well-known players of her instrument. In the home in Oklahoma, she considered music early, beginning piano at age three. This is a matter of family members talent decreasing to her; Yolanda’s mom was also a pianist and thoroughly watched her advancement. On a journey to Chicago at age nine, Yolanda noticed the window screen from the Lyon & Healy music shop, among the world’s leading producers of harps. The loveliness from the screen appealed to her, and she requested harp lessons aswell. She didn’t quit piano, but researched both tools through senior high school. She says the piano was “throat and throat” using the harp as her best choice. The decision was created by a many elements. One was that she got a service for developing this muscles which are found in harp playing (and practically nothing at all else). Another was that she adored the sensation of fabricating the music straight by her personal fingers for the strings. And she experienced that she could lead more like a harpist. At age group 14, she started boarding in the Interlochen Arts Academy. Her advanced schooling was at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Her instructor there is Alice Chalifoux, the main harpist from the Cleveland Orchestra. Kondonassis acquired both her bachelor’s and master’s levels at Curtis. A competition earn gained her a performers’ debut reward like a soloist with Zubin Mehta and the brand new York Philharmonic. She acquired regular work as an orchestral harpist (and it has held this work using the Cleveland Orchestra, the St. Louis Symphony, the SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA Symphony, as well as the Atlanta Symphony). In 1987 she earned the top reward in the Affiliate marketer Artists Country wide Auditions, which allowed her to tour for five years. She created a kind of system she known as “informances,” where she takes on music, makes light commentary, and in addition interacts with the viewers. She plays all of the regular harp repertory, and it has recorded a lot of it. Her Sky Music Compact disc was among the Ten Greatest Traditional CDs of 1996 within the estimation of the brand new York Daily Information. Her recording from the Mozart Flute and Harp Concerto using the British Chamber Orchestra premiered in 1997. She’s recorded main 20th century functions offering the harp by Salzedo, Ginastera, Miyagi, and Hovhaness. She’s also produced transcriptions (including among Vivaldi’s Four Periods), commissioned brand-new works, and it has started to compose in her very own right. One of the composers who’ve written music on her behalf are George Rochberg and Donald Erb. She actually is thinking about contradicting the stereotyped notion of the harp as an “angelic,” “heavenly,” or “impressionistic” device; among the movements from the sonata Erb had written for her is named Dirty Rotten Scherzo. Kondonassis offers taught in the Cleveland Institute of Music as well as the Oberlin University Conservatory. She actually is wedded to Cleveland Orchestra trumpeter Michael Sachs (they will have one girl) and may be the writer of On Playing the Harp, a thorough Guidebook to Harp Technique. She’s been presented, among other locations beyond the original classical orbit, using one from the Tiny Table Concerts presented from the U.S. Country wide Open public Radio network. In the 21st hundred years Kondonassis offers, to a larger degree than almost every other players, attemptedto communicate both with modern music aficionados along with crossover viewers. Some releases for the Telarc label presented such game titles as Music for an ideal Day time (2002) Breathe: The Comforting Harp (2006), however the same label released Never A LONG WAY AWAY: Music of Shiny Sheng, offering music by that Chinese-born Midwestern American composer. Within the 2010s, Kondonassis offers recorded mainly for the innovative Cleveland-area label Azica as well as for a label connected with Oberlin University. In 2016 she released Ginastera: A HUNDRED, an recording commemorating the 100th wedding anniversary from the delivery of Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera, offering that composer’s Harp Concerto, Op. 25. Kondonassis may be the writer of THE HOUSE Is Circular: A Kid’s Publication About Why Protecting the planet earth Matters.