This program is the culmination of over six years of simultaneous collaborations between figgis-vizueta, Yee, and the Rothko String Quartet (RSQ). In their work together and with different ensembles, Yee and RSQ have premiered over fifteen works by figgis-vizueta in the United States and Germany, establishing themselves as champions of her music. Join us for this unforgettable evening showcasing the creative heights of this cello quintet in celebration of the new release of Music for Transitions.

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Program:

Secret Music *

Talamh (land)

Mayu (the great river)

Music for Transitions *

Samara (maple seed) *

Stolen rivers *

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*NY premiere

***Additional works to be announced

// This performance is made possible thanks to the generous support of The Endeavor Foundation.

// This is a seated performance. If you require accessibility accommodations, please email boxoffice@nationalsawdust.org.

// Photo by Diana Lim

inti figgis-vizueta:

inti figgis-vizueta (b.1993) is a composer who works to reconcile historical aesthetics and experimental practices with trans & Indigenous futures. Described as an “ever-intriguing, rising new music star” (LA Times), whose “arresting…sparse, beautiful” (NPR Classical) work brings “a sense of true dramatic stakes” (New York Times), inti has been commissioned by leading artists and presenters including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, The Phillips Collection, Kronos Quartet, Attacca Quartet, Rothko String Quartet, and Roomful of Teeth, among many others.

inti is the recipient of the 2026 United States Artists Fellowship and her debut album Music for Transitions will be released on New Amsterdam Records in November 2026. inti’s teachers and mentors include George Lewis, Marcos Balter, Tania León, and Nico Muhly. inti honors her Quichua bisabuela who was the only woman butcher on the plaza central and used to fight men with a machete. 

Andrew Yee:

Two time GRAMMY Award winning cellist and composer Andrew Yee (She/They) loves making art. She is a founding member of the Attacca Quartet whose recordings of the string quartets of Caroline Shaw; ‘Orange’ and ‘Evergreen’ have each won GRAMMY awards. They can also be heard on the score of the Alfonso Cuaron show ‘Disclaimer’ scored by Finneas O’Connell and on Billie Eilish’s album ‘Hit Me Hard and Soft’. 

As a composer she has written for film and television including Wu Tsang’s ‘Moby Dick’, ‘Love, Jamie’ and two seasons of the BBC show ‘We Might Regret This’. She has had pieces premiered by the Zurich Chamber Ensemble, the New York Philharmonic, and Caroline Shaw. Her new version of the opera ‘Carmen’ was premiered in Zurich in 2024. She recently premiered a new work for orchestra, choir and trans soloists called “Trans Requiem”. 

Her son Otis is the love of her life. 

She plays on an 1884 Eugenio Degani cello on loan from the Five Partners Foundation. 

Rothko String Quartet:

The Rothko String Quartet (RSQ), consisting of Marc Kopitzki (viola), Jakob Nierenz (violoncello), Joosten Ellée (violin), and William Overcash (violin), was founded in 2017 in Lüneburg. The two violinists specialized in the study of both early and contemporary music, giving the ensemble a high degree of flexibility in engaging with various styles of classical music and enabling diverse concert programs. Embodying this stylistic diversity, the RSQ considers it its mission to bring the music of marginalized composers to audiences and to shed light on lesser-known works from the history of classical music.

The collaborative spirit of the four musicians shapes not only their work with contemporary composers and artists from various disciplines, but also their approach to one another in rehearsal. In addition to performing newly composed music, the RSQ is interested in dissolving the boundaries between (musical) genres and collaborates with producers, composers, improvisers, and visual artists. Notable partners have included Mirna Bogdanovic and the Holon Trio (jazz), Sadie Weis (visual art), dOP (techno), Tian Gao (dance), and inti figgis-vizueta (joint album Music for Transitions, release fall 2026).

Together with its partner PODIUM Esslingen, the RSQ creates innovative concert programs that are performed at renowned classical music festivals. The ensemble appears regularly at the Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele, the Düsseldorf Festival!, and the PODIUM Festival Esslingen, and made successful debuts at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, the Thuringian Bach Weeks, and the Mozartfest Würzburg in 2024. With its first US tour in 2025, the RSQ continued its journey, additionally appearing at the Ettlingen Palace Festival (SWR), the “Fratopia” festival at the Alte Oper Frankfurt, and the Festival for New Music Rockenhausen, where the quartet performed Helmut Lachenmann’s String Quartet No. 3 “Grido” on the occasion of the composer’s 90th birthday with him present. 2026 highlights include a performance at the Konzerthaus Berlin as well as the world premiere of inti figgis-vizueta’s “Samara”, a commissioned work by RSQ and PODIUM, performed with Grammy-winning cellist Andrew Yee.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​