SPOLETO FESTIVAL USA AND PHENOTYPIC RECORDINGS TODAY UNVEIL NEW ALBUM LIVE FROM SPOLETO 2025: ORCHESTRA

RECORDED LIVE DURING THE 2025 FESTIVAL SEASON

PART OF MULTI-PROJECT PARTNERSHIP WITH APPLE MUSIC CLASSICAL

March 13, 2026—Spoleto Festival USA and Phenotypic Recordings today unveil Live from Spoleto 2025: Orchestra, the first full album release in a series of live recordings from the Festival's 2025 season, presented as part of its exclusive multi-project partnership with Apple Music Classical—listen here.

“Live performance brings risk, spontaneity, and humanity,” said Spoleto Festival USA General Director and CEO Mena Mark Hanna. “That’s exactly what we want listeners to hear. The mission here is to make sure that the world has an opportunity to truly experience the best performing arts festival in the world.”

Recorded during the 2025 Spoleto Festival USA season, Live from Spoleto 2025: Orchestra preserves performances shaped by risk, spontaneity, and the singular energy of live music. At its core is the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra, a professional ensemble of rising stars and accomplished musicians assembled each year specifically for the Festival. Under the direction of Music Director Timothy Myers, the orchestra combines technical excellence with adventurous programming, creating performances that are both precise and full of vitality.

“Spoleto is a place where musicians arrive ready to give everything,” said Myers. “There’s an intensity here—a sense that every performance matters because it’s happening right now, in front of people who are fully present. The orchestra thrives on that energy, and it comes through in every note”

The album’s first single, the third movement of Jean Sibelius’ Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 47, performed by violinist Alexi Kenney, landed in January exclusively via Apple Music Classical. The Sibelius concerto serves as the album’s centerpiece, revealing both elemental force and inward intensity. Kenney’s performance blends technical brilliance and raw lyricism. “You can feel the tension that only happens when musicians are taking real risks together,” says Phenotypic Recordings CEO Michael Hostetler. “That’s where the excitement lives.”

That immediacy defines the album’s sound. Hostetler continues, “Watching extraordinarily talented musicians at the beginning of their careers—that’s where the magic happens.”

The album’s four parts trace a dramatic arc across contemporary and classic repertoire. It opens with Shawn E. Okpebholo’s Stellar (2024), a premiere recording that launches the program with kinetic energy and radiant color. Myers calls it “a spark—it immediately brings everyone into the same shared space of attention and energy.”

The recording concludes with Richard Strauss’s Suite from Der Rosenkavalier, a work of sumptuous color, warmth, and theatrical joy. Under Myers’ direction, the Festival Orchestra balances lushness with immediacy, allowing the music to unfold with both elegance and momentum.

Live from Spoleto 2025: Orchestra offers a vivid portrait of the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra in full flight, capturing not just performances, but the spirit of a festival where music is created in real time: alive, unfiltered, and shared.

The Orchestra album will be followed by Live from Spoleto 2025: Chamber Music, a two-album series as part of the Apple Music Classical partnership, set for release April 3 and May 8 via Phenotypic Recordings—presave/preorder here.

ABOUT SPOLETO FESTIVAL USA

Spoleto Festival USA was founded in 1977 by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Gian Carlo Menotti, who sought to create an American counterpart to the annual Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, which he had founded in 1958. Spoleto Festival USA is internationally recognized as America’s premier performing arts festival. For 17 days and nights each spring, Spoleto Festival USA fills Charleston’s historic theaters, churches, and outdoor spaces with performances in opera; theater; dance; and chamber, symphonic, choral, and jazz music. With General Director & CEO Mena Mark Hanna at its helm, the 2026 season takes place from May 22 to June 7 in various locations throughout Charleston. Spoleto Festival USA is a 501 (c)(3) charitable organization.

ABOUT PHENOTYPIC RECORDINGS

Phenotypic Recordings brings to light new music by world-class musicians and innovative composers, with a focus on music that highlights the most important issues facing the world today. As another way of amplifying artistic voices, Pheno donates its revenue from streaming and downloads to support humanitarian causes identified by the artists making the music.

ABOUT APPLE MUSIC CLASSICAL

Apple Music Classical is the world’s leading classical music app. Launched in March 2023, Apple Music Classical makes it easier to find any recording in the world’s largest classical music catalog of over 6 million tracks with fully optimized search built specifically for classical, while offering the highest audio quality available. With high-resolution lossless and immersive Spatial Audio, listeners can experience classical favorites in a whole new way. Expertly curated playlists and insightful composer biographies as well as the addition of over 50,000 booklets featuring in-depth liner notes, translations, plus the only global classical music chart and more, make Apple Music Classical the best place for classical music lovers. Apple Music subscribers can enjoy Apple Music Classical at no additional cost.

For more information, please contact Krista Williams, Christopher Emond or Carla Sacks at Sacks & Co., 212.741.1000.

www.spoletousa.org

www.phenotypicrecordings.com

https://classical.music.apple.com