Paola Prestini and Magos Herrera will team up for “Con Alma,” a new operatic album and live event both launching this December.

The album, which will be released on Dec. 4, was recorded remotely between March and October 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and features classic songs from the Mexican and Jazz songbook. The work will be released on National Sawdust Tracks and features over 30 musicians across three continents including the all-women German-based Ensemble Sjaella, Constellation Chor, the Young People’s Chorus of NYC, Mexico’s Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería, Kronos Quartet cellist Jeffrey Zeigler, Silk Road clarinetist Kinan Azmeh, guitarists Romero Lubambo and Vinicius Gomes, arranger and multi-instrumentalist Gonzalo Grau, and arranger Diego Schissi.

There will also be a live digital event on Dec. 13, 2020 in collaboration with the Mexican Ministry of Culture. The event is set to be broadcast via WNET Group’s ALL ARTS TV channel in the New York metro area.

“’Con Alma’ is a sonic painting representing a 15 year friendship through a collaborative process of writing, telling the story of shared ambitions and triumphs, love, trials, hope, and losses,” Prestini and Herrera said in a joint statement. “The artists we worked with form our international musical family, and it’s a joy to be able to connect through this album, leaving an artifact of this time, and our response to the pandemic, alone, but together.”