Christmas Collection

As the companion collection to Yolanda Kondonassis’ critically acclaimed Telarc recording, Dream Season, this volume includes ten of the album’s most popular carols, fully arranged by the artist and ready-to-play – a musthave for every harpist’s holiday library.

“I so clearly remember the first time I ever heard Angels We Have Heard on High.  It was Christmas Eve, and my family and I were squashed into the back row of our church sanctuary.  I was dizzy and hot from standing in the over-crowded pew, unable to see anything past the tall grown-ups directly in front of me.  I passed the time thinking about what Santa might bring me and hoped it would be a big, orange Irish setter (it wasn’t).  Finally, there was music coming from an organ I couldn’t see, and I felt certain the end of the service had to be near.  But once the song began, my mood changed so quickly that I truly wondered what had come over me.  I didn’t want the verses to end.  It was the first time I realized that music is a bit like medicine, capable of seeping into us and transforming our state of being…

…There is perhaps no musical genre more consistently devoted to evoking feelings of love, peace, and joy than the repertoire of Christmas.  We come back to it year after year, tirelessly enjoying its simple messages and sweet melodies…

…My best memories of Christmas are of the quiet moments–the inward joys–and that magical “peace-with-the-world-feeling” we only rarely experience once we leave childhood behind.   Most of my arrangements are conceived with this rather quiet notion in mind…

— Y. Kondonassis