Camilla Tassi Design_Elijah Reimagined_Washington Chorus at the Kennedy Center, photo by Ryan Maxwell
Grammy-nominated harpist Yolanda Kondonassis and the Interlochen Arts Academy String Orchestra present the world premiere of Terra Infirma On Thursday, October 30
Interlochen Center for the Arts
presents harpist/percussionist
YOLANDA KONDONASSIS
in the world premiere of
REENA ESMAIL’S TERRA INFIRMA
for harp/percussion and orchestra
with The Interlochen Arts Academy String Orchestra
conducted by Andrew Grams
October 30, 2025
A call to action for a planet in crisis
Multimedia concert with projections by Camilla Tassi
will be live-streamed
Azica to release recording in April 2026
Yolanda Kondonassis and Reena Esmail
“Terra Infirma is about exploring a way out of our environmental crisis, and connecting it to our shared humanity and compassion for the planet as a living thing. It is so appropriate that we’re creating it at Interlochen, where the focus is all about inspiring young people. It is this generation that will have to tackle Earth’s challenges with clear-eyed determination, intelligence, and creativity” – Yolanda Kondonassis
This is a hopeful work that looks from utter devastation toward a future built through trust and shared intention.” – Reena Esmail
On Thursday, October 30 (7:30 pm ET), Grammy-nominated harpist Yolanda Kondonassis and the Interlochen Arts Academy String Orchestra present the world premiere of Terra Infirma, an environmentally-themed concerto by acclaimed composer Reena Esmail. This stirring 25-minute work, with projections by designer Camilla Tassi, features Kondonassis in the unusual dual role of harpist and percussionist. It will be conducted by Andrew Grams in Corson Auditorium at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Interlochen, Michigan; the concert will be live-streamed. Further venue, ticketing, and streaming details are available at interlochen.org.
Terra Infirma was directly inspired by the experiences of its creative team. Esmail, who resides in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Altadena, was forced to evacuate her home during the catastrophic fires of January 2025. Kondonassis, a committed advocate for the environment, is founder and director of the non-profit organization Earth at Heart; her initiatives include the widely-praised commissioning project FIVE MINUTES for Earth.
Yolanda Kondonassis
Terra Infirma reflects not only the environmental passion and advocacy of both artists, but also their inspiration to innovate and expand the concerto form. In this bold new work, with a title taken from a poem by Robert Walters, the harp symbolizes the protagonist Earth, both fragile and powerful. The towering instrument is moved choreographically by Kondonassis across the stage as she journeys through various arrays of suspended percussion. In the composer’s words, the work is “part virtuoso concerto, part performance art, and part theater.”
Esmail, who is Indian-American, has drawn on her extensive studies of Hindustani music in composing Terra Infirma. Her compositional voice is at once arresting, lyrical, haunting, and fierce. The work, which includes a defining movement titled “Immolation,” incorporates elements of Raag Deepak, an ancient collection of pitches believed to invoke fire. Kondonassis, known for “a range of colour that’s breathtaking,” (Gramophone), brings the work to life as only she can do.
Reena Esmail
Says Esmail, “Terra Infirma sits somewhere between a harp/percussion concerto and a monodrama – Yolanda leads us through the trajectory of a wildfire, starting with the eerie moments before the first spark, and ending with the hope of new growth. The work explores our human relationship to fire – a force that can be at once devastating and illuminating.
“It has been a dream to work so closely with Yolanda, who has reinvented the role of the harp over and over again throughout her career. We have built the DNA of this piece together over so many years – experimenting in percussion studios, mapping stage plots, pushing our imaginations to the limit. I am so excited to share this work with the world.”
States Kondonassis, “The personal and musical resonance that I feel with Reena has resulted in a work that’s deeply personal, uniquely colorful, and ground-breaking in so many ways. The harp is a highly visual instrument, and Terra Infirma utilizes that element to the fullest. In this work, the harp is actually a character in the musical drama onstage, and that gives me the chance to portray an enormous range of artistic emotion.“
The new concerto forms the heart of The Terra Infirma Project, a multi-year initiative of the Interlochen Arts Academy, which boasts Kondonassis as an alumna (class of ‘82). The Interlochen Arts Academy String Orchestra will be featured along with Kondonassis and Grams on the world premiere recording, scheduled for release in April 2026 on the Grammy-winning Azica label. The entire process, from initial workshops to the premiere and recording, is being captured by a professional film crew for an upcoming documentary. The Terra Infirma Project is generously supported by the Allen B. Cutting Foundation.
A B O U T…T H E…C R E A T I V E…T E A M
YOLANDA KONDONASSIS is one of the world’s leading harp soloists, and has performed around the globe as a concerto soloist and recitalist. She released her first solo recording in 1993 to widespread critical acclaim and has since recorded over twenty albums, sold millions of discs and downloads worldwide, made over two dozen world premiere recordings, and received two GRAMMY nominations. She has been described as “viscerally exciting” by The Chicago Tribune and “a brilliant and expressive player” by The Dallas Morning News. Gramophone praises her “keen sense of dramatic timing and a range of colour that’s breathtaking.” Since making her solo debut at age 18 with the New York Philharmonic, Kondonassis has appeared as soloist with countless major orchestras in the United States and abroad, in addition to engagements at renowned festivals including Santa Fe, Marlboro, Spoleto, Mainly Mozart, and Tanglewood. She has been featured on CNN, PBS, Sirius XM Radio, and was presented in two episodes of National Public Radio’s popular Tiny Desk Concert series. Kondonassis, who has promoted numerous new works through her recordings, commissions, and premieres, most recently was the dedicatee and soloist in the world premiere and recording of Jennifer Higdon’s Harp Concerto, which won a GRAMMY Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. She carries her passionate artistic commitment to environmental activism and is the founder and director of Earth at Heart, a non-profit organization devoted to inspiring earth conservation awareness and action through the arts. Her signature project, FIVE MINUTES for Earth, has been a groundbreaking initiative in creating new music that promotes environmental inspiration and generates revenue for science-based organizations. Kondonassis is currently the founding director of The American Harp Institute. Visit www.YolandaHarp.com.
Indian-American composer REENA ESMAIL works between the worlds of Indian and Western classical music, and brings communities together through the creation of equitable musical spaces. Esmail’s life and music was profiled on Season 3 of PBS Great Performances series Now Hear This, as well as Frame of Mind, a podcast from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Esmail divides her attention evenly between orchestral, chamber and choral work. She has written commissions for ensembles including the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Seattle Symphony, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and Kronos Quartet, and her music has been featured on multiple Grammy-nominated albums, including The Singing Guitar by Conspirare, BRUITS by Imani Winds, and Healing Modes by Brooklyn Rider. Esmail holds degrees in composition from The Juilliard School (BM’05) and the Yale School of Music (MM’11, MMA’14, DMA’18). Her primary teachers have included Susan Botti, Aaron Jay Kernis, Christopher Theofanidis, Christopher Rouse and Samuel Adler. She received a Fulbright-Nehru grant to study Hindustani music in India. Her Hindustani music teachers include Srimati Lakshmi Shankar and Gaurav Mazumdar, and she currently studies and collaborates with Saili Oak. Esmail was Composer-in-Residence for Street Symphony (2016-18) and is currently an Artistic Director of Shastra, a non-profit organization that promotes cross-cultural music connecting music traditions of India and the West. Visit www.ReenaEsmail.com.
CAMILLA TASSI is a New York City-based projection designer from Florence, Italy. Design credits include Falling Out of Time (Carnegie Hall), King Arthur (Lincoln Center, Juilliard415), SEACHANGE (Miami City Ballet), The Extinctionist (Heartbeat Opera), Adoration (BMP & PROTOTYPE), SANDRA (TheaterWorks Hartford), Elijah Reimagined (Kennedy Center), Alcina (Yale Opera), Iphigénie en Tauride (Boston Baroque), and Malhaar (Walt Disney Concert Hall). Broadway: Illinoise, Associate. She has sung in the New York Philharmonic Chrous and with the Yale Schola. Tassi holds degrees in computer science, music, and projection design and has received the Burry Fredrik Design Award and the Robert L. Tobin Director-Designer Opera Prize. She received her MFA form Yale University. Visit http://camillatassi.com.
A B O U T…I N T E R L O C H E N…A R T S…A C A D E M Y
INTERLOCHEN ARTS ACADEMY is the nation’s premier boarding arts high school, where emerging artists pursue pre-professional training in seven arts disciplines—music, dance, theatre, visual arts, creative writing, interdisciplinary arts, and film—alongside a robust academic curriculum that prepares them to excel in the arts and beyond.
Since 1928, generations of artists and arts enthusiasts have experienced the special and intangible magic that transpires year-round on the beautiful campus of the Interlochen Center for the Arts, nestled between two pristine lakes and surrounded by quiet pines in northwest Michigan.
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