She is up for a Grammy. She’ll miss the awards show to perform the piece in Wichita
Don’t expect Yolanda Kondonassis to stick around and chat after the last of her two performances next weekend with the Wichita Symphony Orchestra.
It’s the same day as the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, where the harpist is nominated for best classical instrumental solo for Jennifer Higdon’s “Harp Concerto.”
“I am going to try and high-tail it out to L.A. the minute I’m done on Sunday afternoon the 26th,” she said with a laugh from her home in Cleveland. “I want to try and get out there and catch some of the parties, which, in my opinion, is the best part of all this. They usually pull out all the stops.”
The concerto, Kondonassis’s second nomination, also received a nomination for Higdon for best new classical composition. Higdon already has two Grammys and a Pulitzer Prize.
And it’s the piece that will be featured in the two Wichita Symphony performances next weekend.
“It’s a cool little turn of events,” Kondonassis said. “Of course it’d be great to go to the Grammys, but it’s nice to be playing the piece that got me the nomination on the day of the Grammys. Just getting caught up in the glitz and the glamor of the moment, you kind of remember what got you there.”
The Jan. 25-26 program also includes George Walker’s “Lyric for Strings” and Dvorak’s “New World” symphony No. 9.
The collaboration between Kondonassis and Higdon was at least 15 years in the making, the harpist said, beginning when she first heard the composer’s orchestral work, “Blue Cathedral.”
“It just really struck me,” she recalled. “I thought, my goodness, … this person could really do cool things with the harp. I knew she knew how to resonate, both with unique instruments and bring them out to the fullest, and I knew she know how to relate to audiences with her music.”
They began conversations about 10 years ago. “It’s a long process getting an orchestral work commissioned,” Kondonassis said.
Kondonassis said that Higdon got a chance to write more harp music in her first opera, “Cold Mountain,” which preceded the composition of the harp concerto.
“She really took the opportunity to write a gigantic harp part in ‘Cold Mountain,’ so she could really familiarize herself with the idiom and get a little bit of preliminary feedback from the harpist who would be playing it,” Kondonassis said.
Although Kondonassis did not see the piece until it was finished, Higdon sent snippets to her to while in return Kondonassis sent cellphone videos of her playing them.
“She had a really good sort of inane sense of how harp hands work,” Kondonassis said.
Next weekend will be the ninth set of performances of the concerto, and Kondonassis predicts it will be “often played, often heard and often appreciated.”
“It’s really got legs,” she said. “I know this is going to be a real contribution to the harp repertoire.”
A native of Norman, Okla., Kondonassis grew up as the daughter of a piano teacher that had as many as 100 students at a time.
“I was her personal project and her advertisement,” she said.
When she was 9, she and her parents went on a Valentine’s Day weekend trip to Chicago where they saw the storefront display window of Lyon & Healy, a manufacturer that these days only makes harps, decked out in cupids, hearts and arrows for the holiday.
Unbeknownst to Kondonassis, her mother had ordered a beginner’s harp to be delivered to Oklahoma.
“Quite honestly it was my mom’s idea,” she recalled. “I don’t think I would have suggested such an expensive, impractical thing as a kid.”
Identifying herself as a tomboy growing up, Kondonassis now thinks her mother suggested the harp to keep her daughter from a daily regiment of shooting hoops and playing with her dogs.
“Perhaps in her mind she thought playing the harp would get me into wearing a dress once in a while,” Kondonassis said.
The youngster took to the instrument rather quickly.
“Maybe the term ‘child prodigy’ is used too much of the time,” she said with a laugh, “but I was ahead of the game.”
She attended the prestigious Interlochen Center for the Arts in high school, then the Cleveland Institute of Music.
“I was really fortunate to get a lot of professional experiences before I even graduated from college” including making her debut with the New York Philharmonic at age 18, she said. “It does kind of help you to hit the ground running.”
Among Kondonassis’s early success was in 1988 as the first prize winner in the Naftzger Young Artist Auditions and Awards in Wichita.
“I remember it being very impactful at that time,” she said.
It also was her introduction to Wichita Symphony patrons Bill and Nancy Hercher, whom she will reunite with next weekend.
Kondonassis, now considered one of the world’s leading harpists, said she finally decided to choose the instrument because she felt it was underrepresented in the musical world.
“I thought the harp needed a few more ambassadors,” she said. “Maybe I can best put my energies into this.”
WICHITA SYMPHONY, FEATURING YOLANDA KONDONASSIS
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 25 and 3 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 26
Where: Century II concert hall, 225 W. Douglas
Tickets: $25-$70, from the symphony box office, wichitasymphony.org or 316-267-7658
This story was originally published January 19, 2020 at 7:00 AM.