Penn Live Arts Blog / Tagged / America Unfinished

Spring 2026 Highlights

America Unfinished

We couldn’t be more pleased with how the second half of our 25/26 season unfolded. Closing out 2025, we were honored to be named WHYY’s favorite venue. Multimedia journalist Tonya Pendleton shared, “The staff is lovely, the seats are comfy and the acoustics are great.” Pendleton also selected drummer Justin Faulkner as her favorite musician of the year, and he was most recently seen on our stage in the fall with the Branford Marsalis Quartet.

Stepping into 2026, we continued the celebration of our country’s 250th anniversary Read more...

“What I Would Declare”: Conversations and Reflections at the Listening Cabinet

America Unfinished

Last year, as we launched America Unfinished, our 25/26 season marking America’s semiquincentennial, I searched for a way to engage audiences with questions of independence, interdependence, democracy and America’s future. Artists as diverse as Mark Morris, Johnny Gandelsman and Ephrat Asherie would approach the question of what it means to be American at this moment – how could audiences participate in that conversation? Read more...

America Unfinished: Delbert Anderson

America Unfinished

Delbert Anderson is a featured artist in our 25/26 season, America Unfinished, marking our country’s 250th anniversary. On April 26, Anderson and his quartet will perform the world premiere commissioned work Beyond Belief, a multi-part meditation on Navajo history and the tribe’s broken relationship with America. We invited Anderson to reflect and share his thoughts on his work and this pivotal moment in our country’s legacy: Read more...

Fall 2025 Highlights

America Unfinished

Thank you for joining us for a wonderful start to our 25/26 season: America Unfinished. As we head into the new year, we’d like to take a moment to reflect on some of the highlights from the past few months. Between outstanding artists making their Philadelphia debut, new works taking the stage, impactful engagement with audiences and construction progress on our new venues, it’s already been such a rewarding season. Read more...