Cellist Juliana Soltis’ New Album, “American Woman”

Released on the GRAMMY-Award winning Navona label, the album highlights the works of historic women composers

Spanning generations, cellist Juliana Soltis’ third studio album “American Woman” spotlights America’s highly acclaimed and accomplished women composers, who saw their works fall into obscurity after their deaths. 

The album features Mary Howe’s Ballade Fantasque; Amy Beach’s Three Pieces Op. 40, Margaret Bonds’ Troubled Water; Helen Crane’s Six Idylls for Cello and Piano, Op. 51; Dorothy Rudd Moore’s Dirge and Deliverance, and Florence Price’s Adoration. Soltis performs with pianist Ruoting Li on the album. 

“I feel that I have been preparing all my life to play this music,” Juliana said, noting that some of these works have waited over a century to be heard. “These women deserve their place in the narrative of our shared musical history, and I feel both honored and humbled to tell their stories.”

“[This album] is a musical history of women who were both married and unmarried; mothers and childless; highly-educated and self-taught,” Soltis told The Violin Channel. “Taken together, [these women] represent an unbroken tradition of musical excellence that is probably the greatest untold story in American classical music!

“In our current moment, in which American women simultaneously stand on the cusp of an historic first and face unprecedented challenges to our basic rights,” she continued, “the music of American Woman is a powerful reminder that women have always been a part of the cultural conversation in America.”

To purchase and listen to the album, click here.

A video of Soltis performing and discussing Price’s work Adoration, can be viewed below. 

Soltis has headlined Finland’s BRQ Vantaa Fringe Series for Emerging Artists, appeared at the Boston Early Music Festival, and been featured on the Millennium Stage Series at the Kennedy Center. 

Her 2017 debut album “Entrez, le Diable!” on the Acis label, garnered international attention and critical acclaim, and her second release in 2019, “Going Off Script” on King Street Records met with similar praise for her improvisation in Bach’s beloved Cello Suites.

Soltis is a graduate of the New England Conservatory, Ball State University, The Longy School of Music, and Oberlin Conservatory. Her mentors have included Yeesun Kim, Richard Aaron, Phoebe Carrai, and Catharina Meints Caldwell.