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Celebrating America in Sound: The Pacifica Quartet’s American Portraits
In honor of the United States’ upcoming 250th anniversary celebration, Cedille Records is proud to support the Pacifica Quartet as it completes a bold and timely trilogy of recordings. American Portraits, scheduled for release in 2026, will be the final album in a three-part series (and eventual boxed set) that captures the diversity, complexity, and richness of American musical voices.
This culminating volume will feature newly commissioned works by two of America’s most celebrated composers: Gabriela Lena Frank and Jennifer Higdon. Each piece will be centered around a powerful text that reflects the American experience — and that will be brought to life by renowned actress Sigourney Weaver, who will serve as narrator. These commissions promise to create an evocative and deeply personal musical narrative that complements the Pacifica Quartet’s expressive artistry.
American Portraits follows the Pacifica’s Grammy-nominated American Stories, featuring clarinetist Anthony McGill, and American Voices, which includes a collaboration with Uniting Voices (formerly Chicago Children’s Choir). Together, the three albums form a vibrant musical journey across generations, genres, and communities. American Portraits has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, recognizing its significance as part of the nation’s cultural commemoration.
Thanks to your generosity, Cedille is able to make visionary projects like this possible —bringing together extraordinary musicians, composers, and collaborators to shape how the story of America will be heard for years to come.
Recommended
Cedille’s newest digital single, Mischa Zupko: Harpsichord Concerto is available to stream everywhere. Scored for harpsichord and string quartet, the concerto exhibits highly idiomatic harpsichord writing, brought brilliantly into the present by Zupko’s ingenious reshaping of older musical styles into a thoroughly modern expression.
From Chicago-based composter Stacy Garrop comes INVICTUS, Latin for “unconquered.” The work unfolds across four movements and an interlude, moving between lyrical introspection, fierce determination, and triumphant resolve, with Grammy-nominated pianist Marta Aznavoorian and the Chicago Philharmonic under the direction of Artistic Director Scott Speck. Available 5/8.
Haymarket Opera Company presents early-18th-century master Leonardo Vinci’s rare operatic gem, Artaserse (1730). A prominent figure of the Neapolitan School of opera, whose work influenced composers such as Johann Adolph Hasse and Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Vinci’s three-act opera seria centers on the Persian prince, Artaserse, who must bring his father’s murderer to justice amidst betrayal, deceit, and mistaken identity.
In celebration of the June 12 digital single release of Mischa Zupko:Harpsichord Concerto, this month’s playlist features that very instrument and its many personalities. There’s delicacy in Lully’s Passacaille contrasted by Soler’s muscular Keyboard Sonata No. 81 in G Minor. Appearing both accompanied and unaccompanied, the harpsichord takes center stage this month.
Enjoy Cedille’s Weekly Featured Release.