Harpist Yolanda Kondonassis Announces FIVE MINUTES for Earth® - Fifteen New Solos for Harp Inspired by Earth

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press contact: Maggie Stapleton, Jensen Artists
646.536.7864 x2, maggie@jensenartists.com

Harpist Yolanda Kondonassis Announces
FIVE MINUTES for Earth®
Introducing Fifteen New Solos for Harp Inspired by Earth

New Works by:

Chen Yi, Nathaniel Heyder, Aaron Jay Kernis, Patrick Harlin, Hannah Lash
Keith Fitch, Stephen Hartke, Reena Esmail, Zhou Long, Michael Daugherty
Gary Schocker, Jocelyn Chambers, Daniel Dorff, Philip Maneval, and Máximo Diego Pujol
(listed by row, left to right) 

World Premiere performances to take place in NYC and LA in April 2022

Recording on Azica Records to be released in March 2022

www.yolandakondonassis.com/earth-at-heart

 

New York, NY – Multiple GRAMMY-nominated harpist Yolanda Kondonassis announces FIVE MINUTES for Earth®, her new project that both celebrates our planet and illuminates the challenge to preserve it. Kondonassis has tasked fifteen of today’s most innovative compositional voices with creating works or soundscapes of five minutes or less for the harp that express a powerful experience inspired by Earth in one of its many conditions or atmospheres. FIVE MINUTES is also a metaphor for the urgent and compressed timeframe that remains for our global community to find and implement solutions to the environmental crisis. 

All composers are generously contributing their works to the project, and each solo is written for and dedicated to Yolanda Kondonassis: Chen Yi, Jocelyn Chambers, Michael Daugherty, Daniel Dorff, Reena Esmail, Keith Fitch, Patrick Harlin, Stephen Hartke, Nathaniel Heyder, Aaron Jay Kernis, Hannah Lash, Philip Maneval, Máximo Diego Pujol, Gary Schocker, and Zhou Long.

The concept of the project is built upon the idea of bringing the classical music community together in support of earth conservation and “paying it forward” through one’s artistic contribution, where the creation and performance of music actually generates funding for earth causes. After the works are premiered and released on recording by Yolanda in the Spring of 2022, the music will be available to harpists worldwide, and for each verified performance of any work in the FIVE MINUTES collection - by any harpist, anywhere in the world -  Kondonassis’ non-profit organization Earth at Heart® will make a donation to a recognized earth conservation organization. The beneficiary organizations include The Rainforest Alliance, The Sierra Club Foundation, Environmental Defense Fund, The Nature Conservancy, Ocean Conservancy, and Wildlife Fund.

World premiere performances of the FIVE MINUTES collection by Yolanda Kondonassis are planned in New York City and Los Angeles in April of 2022 – Earth Day month. The multimedia concerts will create an evocative, cohesive journey through both the exquisite beauty of Earth and the inevitable perils if we fail to protect it. Photographic images, curated especially for the production, will be featured, along with original poetry and text that illuminate the music and the imagery. 

Additionally, Kondonassis will record all fifteen works to be released on Azica Records in March 2022. Her royalties from the recording release will be donated to earth causes and initiatives.

As founder and director of the non-profit organization, Earth at Heart®, Kondonassis says, “Climate change, air quality, water pollution, man-made disasters, and diminishing resources are all inconvenient topics that have become increasingly politicized. Sometimes we instinctively know something deserves our attention, but we need a bit of inspiration to push us into action. As a musician, I see the profound impact of the arts all around us on a daily basis. That is why I founded Earth at Heart®. When we see an idea expressed in the language of music, dance, visual art, or poetry, those sensory experiences often open the mind and heart to interaction and reaction in ways that mere facts may not. With every passing moment, we lose ground in the battle to protect our environment from the dire consequences of waste, neglect, and abuse. Action is the goal, but a visceral call to engagement can be the catalyst. There is not a minute to lose in our battle to protect the future of our planet, and an open heart and inspired commitment can make all the difference.”

FIVE MINUTES also builds upon Kondonassis’ commitment to the advancement of new music and her passion for inspiring composers to write for the harp. She has promoted countless new works through her numerous recordings, commissions, and performances, including the world premiere series of Bright Sheng’s Never Far Away: Concerto for Harp and Orchestra with the San Diego Symphony and the Dallas Symphony, and most recently, she was the dedicatee and soloist in the world premiere series of Jennifer Higdon’s Harp Concerto; Kondonassis’ recording of Higdon’s Harp Concerto earned a GRAMMY nomination for Best Classical Instrumental Solo in 2020.  Her extensive discography includes works by Rorem, Rochberg, Erb, Liebermann, Paulus, Fitch, Lash, Montsalvatge, Takemitsu, Cage, and Carter, among others.

Royalties from several of her other projects are donated to earth causes and her first children’s book, entitled Our House is Round: A Kid’s Book About Why Protecting Our Earth Matters, was published in 2012 by Skyhorse Publishing and praised as “the perfect children’s introduction to environmental issues” by The Environmental Defense Fund. The book was licensed as a featured title by Scholastic Books and will see its paperback release in April of 2022.

About the Composers

Jocelyn Chambers is a Composer-creative based in Los Angeles, CA. Born and raised in Austin, Texas, Chambers began studying piano at age 7 and discovered the magic of composition at 13. Knowing her dream was to score film, Chambers committed her life in pursuit of her passion. She studied composition at the University of Texas at Austin, earning her Bachelor's degree at 20. At 21, Chambers moved to Los Angeles to earn a certificate in film scoring from UCLA and launch her career. In the three years she has lived in LA, Chambers has scored features, shorts, and ad music. Photo Credit: Ravin Rene

As a prolific composer who blends East and West traditions, transcending cultural and musical boundaries, Chinese-American composer Dr. Chen Yi is a Distinguished Endowed Professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory, and the recipient of the Charles Ives Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her music is published by Theodore Presser, and is performed and recorded worldwide. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, she holds a BA and an MA from Beijing Central Conservatory of Music, and a DMA from Columbia University in the City of New York. Photo Credit: Beijing Kuandi

There probably isn’t an orchestra in the world that hasn’t played a work by GRAMMY Award-winning composer Michael Daugherty. Known for his ear, his wit and his imagination of how instruments work together, his music is inspired by American idioms, mythologies and icons. Born in 1954 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Daugherty is the son of a dance band drummer and the oldest of five brothers, all professional musicians. His music has received six GRAMMY Awards, including “Best Contemporary Classical Composition” in 2010 for Deus ex Machina for piano and orchestra and in 2016 for Tales of Hemingway for cello and orchestra. Photo Credit: Yopie Prins

Daniel Dorff's music has received hundreds of performances on educational programs of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, and Atlanta Opera, including 9 commissions. Over 30 flutists have shared performances of Sonata (Three Lakes) on YouTube, where his works have enjoyed over 1 million views. Recent performances include his Concerto for Contrabassoon by the Colorado Symphony. His orchestral music has been premiered by maestros Alan Gilbert and Wolfgang Sawallisch. Dorff has also created arrangements for James Galway, Keith Emerson, and Lisa Loeb. Dorff received degrees from Cornell and University of Pennsylvania; teachers included Crumb, Rochberg, and Husa. Dorff served 1996-2015 as Composer-In-Residence for the Symphony in C. Photo Credit: Kate Fish

Reena Esmail works between the worlds of Indian and Western classical music, to bring communities together through the creation of equitable musical spaces. Esmail holds degrees from The Juilliard School and the Yale School of Music. A resident of Los Angeles, Esmail is the 20-23 Swan Family Artist in Residence with Los Angeles Master Chorale, and the 20-21 Composer in Residence with Seattle Symphony. She currently serves as Co-Chair of the Board of New Music USA, and Co Founder and Artistic Director of Shastra, a non-profit organization that promotes cross-cultural music connecting musical traditions of India and the West. Photo Credit: Rachel Garcia

Keith Fitch currently heads the composition department and holds the Vincent K. and Edith H. Smith Chair in Composition at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he also directs the CIM New Music Ensemble. His works have been performed throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia by such ensembles as The Philadelphia Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Da Capo Chamber Players, and many others. He has been honored with awards from ASCAP, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fromm Music Foundation, Copland House, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, among others. Photo Credit: Alex Cooke

Patrick Harlin’s music is permeated by classical, jazz, and electronic music traditions, all underpinned with a love and respect for the great outdoors. His works have been performed by the St. Louis Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, and commercially recorded by Ward Stare and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra among others. Patrick’s interdisciplinary research in soundscape ecology—a field that aims to better understand ecosystems through sound—has taken him to imperiled regions including the Amazon rainforest. Patrick was raised in Seattle and lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is currently the composer-in-residence with the Lansing Symphony Orchestra. Photo Credit: Audrey Kelley

GRAMMY Award Winner Stephen Hartke is widely recognized as one of the leading composers of his generation, whose work has been hailed for both its singularity of voice and the inclusive breadth of its inspiration. His highly varied output includes symphonies for the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, chamber works for the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, the Hilliard Ensemble, the Brentano String Quartet, and the opera, The Greater Good, for Glimmerglass Opera. He served as Distinguished Professor of Composition at the University of Southern California until 2015 and is now Professor and Chair of Composition at Oberlin Conservatory. Photo Credit: Ernestine Ruben 

Nathaniel Heyder is a composer currently residing in Cleveland, Ohio. Recognition for his compositions include the YoungArts Merit Award (2017), the 2017 NextNotes High School Composition Competition award presented by the American Composer’s Forum, the Emerging Composer honor in the 2020 Tribeca New Music Young Composer Competition, and the 2021 Nief-Norf Summer Festival International Call for Scores. His music has been performed by members of both The Cleveland Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra. His orchestral piece Iterations was recently premiered by the CIM orchestra under JoAnn Falletta. Nathaniel attended the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied with Keith Fitch. Photo Credit: Alex Cooke

Pulitzer, GRAMMY and Grawemeyer Award winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis has been commissioned by the world’s preeminent performing organizations and artists. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Kernis is a member of the Classical Music Hall of Fame, directs the Nashville Symphony’s Composer Lab and Workshop, and teaches composition at Yale School of Music. Leta Miller's book-length portrait of Kernis and his work was published by University of Illinois Press as part of its American Composer series. His music can be heard on the Nonesuch, Naxos, Signum, Koch, Onyx, Argo labels, among others. Photo Credit: Richard Bowditch 

Hailed by The New York Times as “striking and resourceful…handsomely brooding,” Hannah Lash’s music has been performed at major venues throughout the United States. The 2019-20 season saw several premieres including the chamber opera, Desire, which premiered at New York's Miller Theater, a Double Concerto for piano and harp performed by Lash and pianist Jeremy Denk with the Naples Philharmonic, and Forestallings, a musical response to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 commissioned by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. In 2020, Hub New Music premiered Lash's The Nature of Breaking, written for Hub New Music and Hannah Lash to perform as a mixed ensemble with harp. Hannah Lash's music is published exclusively by Schott Music Corporation (New York). Photo Credit: Karjaka Studios

Philip Maneval has composed more than 90 pieces, including a work for the Daedalus Quartet and clarinetist Michael Rusinek; a violin concerto premiered in Romania by Liliana Ciulei and the Enescu Philharmonic; a sonata for Jennifer Montone, principal horn of the Philadelphia Orchestra; piano pieces premiered by Ignat Solzhenitsyn; and a string sextet for the late great Felix Galimir. Philip is also Manager of Marlboro Music, and Executive Director of the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. He received a graduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania, studying with Richard Wernick, George Crumb and George Rochberg; and an undergraduate degree from Oberlin. Photo Credit: Marlboro Music Festival

Máximo Diego Pujol (Buenos Aires) graduated in the Juan José Castro Conservatory with the Superior Guitar Professor title. His extensive education included harmony and composition studies with Maestro Leónidas Arnedo. He has been awarded numerous first prizes and distinctions, both as a performer and as a composer. He is frequently invited to participate in concerts and festivals, and to present masterclasses and conduct workshops throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Pujol’s works are inspired by the musical heritage of his native Argentina. His works are published by notable publishers in Europe, Canada and the United States and are performed and recorded around the world. Photo Credit: Laura Tenenbaum

Although widely recognized as a flutist and composer of several hundred works for flute, Gary Schocker is also a pianist and harpist. He began piano at age three under the tutelage of his father and took up the flute at 10, continuing his studies on both instruments at The Juilliard School. He began teaching himself to play the harp in 2011. As a composer, Schocker is also self-taught. His Scherzo for flute and piano was his first publication (1975). He has since composed over 1100 pieces, including more than 300 for harp. His Yi Jing for harp and chamber orchestra had its premiere with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in 2019. Photo Credit: Jurgen Bauer

Winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for his first opera, Madame White Snake, Zhou Long has also received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, and the Elise Stoeger Prize from Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. A graduate of Beijing Central Conservatory of Music, he holds a DMA from Columbia University in New York. Dr. Zhou is currently Bonfils Distinguished Professor of Composition at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory. His music of all genres has been widely performed and recorded, and published by the Oxford University Press and the Shanghai Music Publishing House. Photo Credit: Beijing Kuandi 

About Yolanda Kondonassis: Yolanda Kondonassis is celebrated as one of the world’s premier solo harpists and is widely regarded as today’s most recorded classical harpist. Hailed as “viscerally exciting” (The Chicago Tribune) and a “brilliant and expressive player” (The Dallas Morning News), she has performed around the globe as a concerto soloist and in recital, bringing her unique brand of musicianship and warm artistry to an ever-increasing audience. Also a published author, speaker, professor of harp, and environmental activist, she weaves her many passions into a vibrant and multi- faceted career. 

Praised by Gramophone for her “keen sense of dramatic timing and a range of colour that’s breathtaking,” Kondonassis has sold hundreds of thousands of albums and downloads worldwide and her extensive discography, released on the Telarc, Azica, Oberlin Music, New World, and Channel Classics labels, includes over twenty titles. Her many albums have earned universal critical praise as she continues to be a pioneering force in the harp world, striving to make her instrument more accessible to audiences and pushing the boundaries of what listeners expect of the harp. She was nominated for a 2020 GRAMMY Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo for her latest recording, featuring the world premiere of Jennifer Higdon’s Harp Concerto with The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra as part of the album American Rapture (Azica Records, 2019). Her 2008 album of music by Takemitsu and Debussy, Air (Telarc), was also nominated for a GRAMMY Award.

Since making her debut at age 18 with the New York Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta, Kondonassis has appeared as soloist with major orchestras in the United States and abroad including The Cleveland Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, Dallas Symphony, and Houston Symphony, to name a few. Other appearances include engagements at Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, the 92nd Street Y, Taiwan’s National Concert Hall and at renowned festivals including the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Marlboro Music Festival, Spoleto Festival, Tanglewood Music Festival, Bravo! Vail, and others. She has been featured on CNN and PBS, as well as Sirius XM Radio’s Symphony Hall, NPR’s All Things Considered and Tiny Desk Concerts, St. Paul Sunday Morning, and Performance Today.

As a chamber musician, Kondonassis has collaborated with artists such as the Shanghai, Jupiter, Rossetti, JACK, Biava and Vermeer string quartets, pianist Jeremy Denk, guitarist Jason Vieaux, violist Cynthia Phelps, and flutists Marina Piccinini, Joshua Smith, and Eugenia Zukerman.

As an author, composer, and arranger, Kondonassis has published four books to date: The Composer’s Guide to Writing Well for the Modern Harp; On Playing the Harp, a comprehensive guide to harp technique and methodology; The Yolanda Kondonassis Collection, a compilation of her many original transcriptions, arrangements and compositions for the harp; and The Yolanda Kondonassis Christmas Collection, featuring Kondonassis’ most popular arrangements from her acclaimed disc, Dream Season: The Christmas Harp. Carl Fischer Music publishes all of her works.

Born in Norman, Oklahoma, Kondonassis attended high school at Interlochen Arts Academy. She continued her education at The Cleveland Institute of Music, where she received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees as a student of Alice Chalifoux. Kondonassis heads the harp departments at Oberlin Conservatory of Music and The Cleveland Institute of Music and presents masterclasses around the world. For more information on Yolanda Kondonassis, visit www.YolandaHarp.com.  Photo Credit: Laura Watilo Blake

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