Spoleto Festival USA and Phenotypic Recordings have released Live from Spoleto 2025: Orchestra, the first full album in a new series of recordings captured live during the 2025 Festival season. The project is part of the Festival’s exclusive multi-project partnership with Apple Music Classical, bringing the sound and spirit of Spoleto performances to listeners around the world.
“Live performance brings risk, spontaneity, and humanity,” said Mena Mark Hanna, General Director and CEO of Spoleto Festival USA. “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 Festival season, the album centers on 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 precision with adventurous programming, producing performances that are both polished and electric with live energy.
“Spoleto is a place where musicians arrive ready to give everything,” Myers said. “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 centerpiece is Jean Sibelius’ Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 47, performed by violinist Alexi Kenney. The concerto’s third movement debuted earlier this year as the album’s first single on Apple Music Classical.
Kenney’s interpretation blends technical brilliance with raw lyricism, capturing the tension and thrill that only live performance can create. “You can feel the tension that only happens when musicians are taking real risks together,” said Michael Hostetler, CEO of Phenotypic Recordings. “That’s where the excitement lives.”
Across four works, the album traces a dramatic musical arc. It opens with Stellar (2024) by Shawn E. Okpebholo, a premiere recording that launches the program with radiant color and kinetic energy.
The recording concludes with Richard Strauss’s Suite from Der Rosenkavalier, a work celebrated for its lush orchestration, warmth, and theatrical flair. Under Myers’ direction, the Festival Orchestra balances grandeur with immediacy, allowing Strauss’s music to unfold with elegance and momentum.
Together, the performances form a vivid portrait of the Festival Orchestra in motion—capturing not only the music itself but the atmosphere of a Festival where artistry unfolds in real time.