New album, In Spite of Everything, is out now

In Spite of Everything is a new classical crossover album from Nashville-based cellist and composer Kaitlyn Raitz, featuring intimate, cello-forward instrumental music shaped across several years.

Raitz began recording the album in 2023, releasing singles with the intention of completing the project in early 2024. That plan unraveled when her father unexpectedly passed away in February of that year. In the months that followed, grief took precedence, time blurred, and the album lingered unfinished — a project that remained present but untouched.

In Spite of Everything was ultimately completed during a handful of uninterrupted days in a Sacramento hotel room, recorded with a small, mobile setup and guided by a renewed determination to finally see the project through. The result is a record that feels intimate and unguarded: spare, lyrical cello-forward compositions that sit somewhere between contemporary classical, ambient, and singer-songwriter sensibility — music that carries weight without heaviness.

In Spite of Everything is less about loss than it is about continuation — about finishing something because it still matters, even when life intervenes.