Azica Records recently released an album titled American Rapture from Ward Stare and the Rochester Philharmonic. The release contains three American works from three different generations of composers, one being Grammy-winning Jennifer Higdon. Her new Harp Concerto, written for and performed by Yolanda Kondonassis, is a delightful addition to the harp repertoire and one, I believe, will be performed for years to come. You may have recently heard an excerpt from this concerto on WGUC’s New at Noon. Not long after the album’s release, I had the pleasure of chatting with both Stare and Kondonassis about this project. Kondonassis explained to me how the idea for a Higdon Harp Concerto first came about.
She went on to talk about collaborating with Ward Stare and the Rochester Philharmonic to make the recording.
Writing for the harp isn’t exactly easy.
Even though Kondonassis gave Jennifer Higdon a wish list for her concerto, she didn’t want to
interfere too much with the compositional process.
She added a fun Cincinnati connection to the Higdon Concerto.
I next turned my attention to Maestro Stare, who told me about the other two works on this new album.
And of course, my favorite way to end an interview is to ask what folks like to do in their free time! At first, I got a laugh because “free time” is hard to come by. But then they obliged.
