ORONO – A harp and a flute on the same concert program could easily become open-the-gates-of-heaven sweet. But leave it to Eugenia Zukerman, the internationally acclaimed flutist and multifaceted artist, and Yolanda Kondonassis, one of today’s leading harpists, to mightily defend their instruments at a Maine Center for the Arts concert Sunday at Minsky Recital Hall. These are formidable musicians who, having mastered the traditional repertoire, have blazed a clear trail toward contemporary and global music.

Both are repeat visitors to the area as vacationers and as performers. Zukerman last played at MCA in 1999 with guitarist David Leisner. Kondonassis performed a year later with the Bangor Symphony Orchestra. That track record may be part of the reason the women played to a sold-out crowd at Minsky.

But it’s just as likely that the unique combination of wind and string sounds piqued curiosity. Would it be that gates-of-heaven stuff? The answer is yes and no. Kondonassis and Zukerman began the program with Sonata in F, a baroque work by the Venetian composer Benedetto Marcello. Anyone looking for a tip of the hat to traditions could find it in this piece, as well as in the encore performance of “Tambourin,” a brief French work by Francois-Joseph Gossec.

Otherwise, the program was a round-the-world bonanza. The musicians spanned some 200 years by leaping into Alan Hovhaness’ “The Garden of Adonis” and Vincent Persichetti’s Serenade No. 10, both written in the 20th century. Zukerman was particularly skillful in the second, exemplifying her well-known lyricism and mastery of her flute. As for Kondonassis, every so often, a musician will come upon a composer whose work is particularly inspiring; it will make performer and composer alike sing. Hovhaness is that composer for Kondonassis. While both musicians equally sustained the moodiness of the work’s seven short movements, it was Kondonassis who nudged the audience toward seeing her instrument in a new way, as one of varying rhythms, energies and tones. Maybe it’s that we don’t usually get up close and personal with the harp, but I think it’s more that Kondonassis is a commanding musician, as well as an artist on a mission to restate the place of the harp as a front-and-center instrument.

Her solo performance of “Chansons dans la nuit” by American composer Carlos Salzedo, who for many years had a harp school in Maine, gave the audience its first taste of the unpredictable range of her instrument. Here she slid her fingers vertically along the strings, tapped the wood frame and squeezed out tiny, high notes.

“Narthex” suggested a limitless communion between harp and flute. Written in the 1970s by Bernard Andres, one of the most popular composers for harp today, “Narthex” challenges both instruments to find unconventional voices. At several points, Zukerman separated the mouthpiece of her flute from the rest of the body and blew into it while sticking her finger into the opening. Kondonassis lodged a tuning fork onto the strings for an eerie echo. She also slapped the wood, broke into glissandos and used another metal object to rattle the action or tap on the strings. Both performers were up to the technical challenges and dynamics.

My favorite piece on the program was the tone poem “Haru No Umi” by Michio Miyagi, a blind Japanese musician who revolutionized music for the koto, a dulcimerlike instrument. This is a delicate piece, with Asian inflections and narrative passion. Miyagi, who composed during the 20th century, is not often played, and that alone brought an exotic element to an already globetrotting and stimulating program.