Harpist Yolanda Kondonassis landed in Cleveland to study at the Cleveland Institute of Music where she now heads the harp department. But that only scratches the surface of her voluminous career and priorities. She’s performed around the world with orchestras and as a soloist, and released numerous records, with a commitment to supporting new music for the instrument. She’s a teacher, a speaker and an author of books about playing the harp. She’s also a long-time dedicated environmental activist, who’s founded her own environmental nonprofit, Earth at Heart®, and has even written a children’s book about protecting the Earth.
She brings all of that together on her new release, FIVE MINUTES for Earth, on Cleveland-based Azica Records. The album features 15 new works, each around five minutes in length, which she solicited from 15 currently working international composers. All are inspired by the Earth, its beauty and its challenges. The title reflects not only the pieces’ length, but also the urgency of confronting the climate crisis.
The pieces deal with topics such as the disappearance of glaciers (the subject of three of the pieces), the 1930s Oklahoma dust storms, how man despoils the environment, and more reflective pieces, such as Chen Yi’s “Dark Mountains,” contemplating Earth’s blue mountains, and Zhou Long’s “Green,” celebrating nature and the spirit of life. Daniel Dorff’s Meditation at Perkiomen Creek speaks to the “mystical solitude” of the place in the work’s title. Other pieces are inspired by birdsong and the songs of the humpbacked whale. Learn more abut the pieces and their composers here.
“Ever since I became active in Earth conservation over twenty years ago, I have had a sense that the harp could be a strong metaphorical protagonist in the story of Earth: majestic but fragile, feminine yet fiercely powerful, and strikingly diverse but appreciated primarily for its most classically beautiful facets,” says Kondonassis in the album’s press release. “My producer and I made the choice to let the natural acoustics of the harp ring through on this recording — to capture each sound deeply and authentically, whether an intimately voiced line or a wailing scream in the uppermost register of the harp. The result is this musical ode to our Earth in all its glory, beauty and pain — past, present and future.”
All of the composers donated their work to Kondonassis; all royalties from the recording will be donated to environmental organizations: The Rainforest Alliance, The Sierra Club Foundation, Environmental Defense Fund, The Nature Conservancy, Ocean Conservancy, and Wildlife Fund. In addition, the music will be available to all harpists, and Kondonassis’ nonprofit Earth at Heart® will make a donation to a conservation organization for each verified performance.
She’s also planning videos for each track, life multimedia concerts and a collection of Earth-inspired solos for younger harpists.
“Climate change, air quality, water pollution, man-made disasters, and diminishing resources are all inconvenient topics that have become increasingly politicized,” says Kondonassis. “Sometimes we instinctively know something deserves our attention, but we need a bit of inspiration to push us into action. 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.”
Learn more about Kondonassis, the recording and Earth at Heart® at YolandaHarp.com.