Spoleto Festival USA is once again drawing national attention, with coverage from BroadwayWorld.com highlighting the release of Live from Spoleto 2025: Chamber Music, Vol. 2 “Vivaldi Meets Vahdat,” the latest recording from the Festival’s acclaimed Bank of America Chamber Music series.
Released in partnership with Phenotypic Recordings and presented as part of Spoleto Festival USA’s exclusive multi-project collaboration with Apple Music Classical, the album captures the adventurous spirit and collaborative energy that define the Festival experience. Phenotypic Recordings worked closely with the Festival to record, produce, and bring these live performances to audiences beyond Charleston, preserving the immediacy, intimacy, and energy of the concerts as they unfolded in real time.
“Spoleto is about adventure and excitement—about how different art forms can collide with each other to create something new,” said Spoleto Festival USA General Director and CEO Mena Mark Hanna. “Chamber music is one of the Festival’s core artistic pillars, and these recordings reflect the same spirit of curiosity, daring, and immediacy that defines Spoleto Festival USA as a whole.”
Recorded live during the Festival’s 17-day run in Charleston, Live from Spoleto 2025: Chamber Music, Vol. 2 “Vivaldi Meets Vahdat” brings listeners inside the historic Dock Street Theatre, capturing performances in real time and preserving the intimacy and spontaneity of live music-making.
The album creates a striking dialogue across time and culture, interweaving works by Iranian vocalist and 2025 Spoleto Festival USA, Suzan D. Boyd Composer-in-Residence Mahsa Vahdat with movements from Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. Rather than presenting the works in contrast, the recording allows Persian song and Baroque concerto to unfold as a continuous conversation, reframing both traditions through shared listening and performance.
The album’s first single, “Dialogue With the Beloved,” debuted in April exclusively on Apple Music Classical. Performed by an ensemble of Festival artists, the work highlights the expressive clarity and immediacy that have become hallmarks of Spoleto’s chamber music programming.
The release follows Live from Spoleto 2025: Chamber Music, Vol. 1, which explored similarly expansive musical territory, blending jazz influences, South Asian musical traditions, classical masterworks, and improvisatory performance styles. Together, the two albums offer a vivid portrait of the Festival’s chamber music series and its commitment to artistic discovery.
Curated by Paul Wiancko, the Charles E. and Andrea L. Volpe Director of Chamber Music, the recordings are guided by a philosophy of performance that prioritizes immediacy and creative risk-taking.
“I look for the energy of improvisation in everything,” said Wiancko. “Music played with such deep understanding that it feels newly invented each time.”
For nearly five decades, Spoleto Festival USA has served as a meeting place for artists, audiences, and ideas from around the world. The Live from Spoleto 2025 recordings continue that tradition, capturing not only exceptional performances, but the atmosphere of a Festival where music is experienced fully in the moment—alive, collaborative, and deeply connected to place.