Spoleto Festival USA Launches Partnership with Apple Music Classical

Spoleto Festival USA has set Live from Spoleto 2025: Orchestra, the first release in a new, multi-project partnership with Apple Music Classical. The collaboration presents exclusive recordings from the Festival’s 2025 Orchestra performances. The full album arrives March 13 via Phenotypic Recordings.

The partnership launches with an Apple Music Classical’s exclusive release of the third movement of Jean Sibelius’ Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 47, performed by violinist Alexi Kenney. Listen to it below.

The single will be available to stream on all digital service providers on February 13, followed by the full album’s worldwide digital release in March. With this partnership, Spoleto Festival USA joins an elite group of festivals worldwide to be granted exclusive Apple releases, alongside the Salzburg Festival, Verbier Festival, and the Aspen Music Festival.

Recorded during the 2025 Spoleto Festival USA season, Live from Spoleto 2025: Orchestra preserves performances from the festival. 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 album’s four parts trace an arc across contemporary and classic repertoire. It opens with Shawn E. Okpebholo’s Stellar (2024), and concludes with Richard Strauss’s Suite from Der Rosenkavalier.

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.