Toomai String Quintet
featuring
Energia Latina!
Celebrating the Latin American Music
Music
at the
North Fork Arts Center
4342 Grand Ave, Mattituck, NY 11952
Saturday, September 13th, 2025, at 5:00pm
Description
This program is a joyous celebration of the vibrant sounds, pioneering rhythms, endlessly diverse traditions, and enormous influence of Latin culture in the United States, including vital contributions from the Caribbean.
The program features musical styles that range from salsa, Latin jazz, música mexicana, classical, and so much more, highlighting the game-changing contributions and constant evolution of Latin music from the 1930s to today, with a special focus on genres that have developed and thrived in the US.
Continuing an exploration of Cuban musical traditions that blossomed with its 2018 album Cuerdas Cubanas, Toomai String Quintet presents a program of original arrangements that reimagine music by some of the most celebrated Cuban composers of the past and present. This concert features works by Tania León, Leo Brouwer, Gisela Hernández, and Ernesto Lecuona, as well as Yosvany Terry’s recent work Soñando despierto, commissioned by Toomai with support from the Cuban Cultural Center of New York.
Music Program
Keyla Orozco: El canto de la cigarra (WP), for narrator and string quintet
Ernesto Lecuona: La Comparsa (arr. Andrew Roitstein)
Adonis González-Matos: Conga (NYP), for string quintet
Corrente for string quintet
Ernesto Lecuona: Danza Lucumí (arr. Andrew Roitstein)
Yosvany Terry: Soñando Despierto (WP)
Israel "Cachao" Lopez: Cunde echa un pie (arr. Andrew Roitstein)
This program is a joyous celebration of the vibrant sounds, pioneering rhythms, endlessly diverse traditions, and enormous influence of Latin culture in the United States, including vital contributions from the Caribbean.
The program features musical styles that range from salsa, Latin jazz, música mexicana, classical, and so much more, highlighting the game-changing contributions and constant evolution of Latin music from the 1930s to today, with a special focus on genres that have developed and thrived in the US.
Continuing an exploration of Cuban musical traditions that blossomed with its 2018 album Cuerdas Cubanas, Toomai String Quintet presents a program of original arrangements that reimagine music by some of the most celebrated Cuban composers of the past and present. This concert features works by Tania León, Leo Brouwer, Gisela Hernández, and Ernesto Lecuona, as well as Yosvany Terry’s recent work Soñando despierto, commissioned by Toomai with support from the Cuban Cultural Center of New York.
Music Program
Keyla Orozco: El canto de la cigarra (WP), for narrator and string quintet
Ernesto Lecuona: La Comparsa (arr. Andrew Roitstein)
Adonis González-Matos: Conga (NYP), for string quintet
Corrente for string quintet
Ernesto Lecuona: Danza Lucumí (arr. Andrew Roitstein)
Yosvany Terry: Soñando Despierto (WP)
Israel "Cachao" Lopez: Cunde echa un pie (arr. Andrew Roitstein)
This is a production of
Rites of Spring Music Festival
in collaboration with
North Fork Arts Center
This project is made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by Huntington Arts Council.
The Toomai String Quintet
The Toomai String Quintet is an ensemble devoted to playing a variety of musical traditions from around the world, creating its own string arrangements, and commissioning new works. The award-winning group has been engaging audiences across the United States for over a decade, performing concerts in collaboration with presenters such as Carnegie Hall, 92 Y, and the Juilliard School, among others. A group of world-class musicians and passionate educators, Toomai combines these elements to create highly interactive programs for audiences of all ages.
Central to Toomai’s mission is the expansion of the Latin American repertoire for string ensemble. Toomai has arranged or commissioned over 20 works by Latin American composers. The ensemble also facilitates educational workshops that teach young people creative approaches to music through the lens of Cuban and Brazilian traditions. In 2018, Toomai released its debut album, Cuerdas Cubanas; in 2024, the group will release a new album of Brazilian music, Passos Brasileiros.
Hailed for their “light-handed authority” on their “magnificently executed” playing (the Squid’s Ear), Toomai has performed in many capacities throughout the United States, with appearances at Lincoln Center, the 92 Y, Philadelphia Arts Alliance, and for the Americas Society (NYC), and Bay Chamber Festival (Maine), among others. The quintet was a pilot ensemble for Carnegie Hall’s “Musical Connections” program, and they continue to perform regularly in schools, hospitals, and alternative care facilities throughout New York City. In addition, the Toomai String Quintet has brought its array of educational programs to students in California, Florida, and across the Northeast, and has presented interactive concerts in collaboration with organizations such as California Institute of the Arts, The Juilliard School, and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute.
Formed in 2007 at The Juilliard School, the quintet is named after Rudyard Kipling’s short story “Toomai of the Elephants” in which a young boy journeys into the jungle to witness the dance of the wild elephants. The Toomai String Quintet aspires to cultivate a similar sense of curiosity and discovery by searching for diverse music and sharing it with its audience.
The quintet members are violinists Emilie-Anne Gendron and Alex Fortes, violist George Meyer, cellist Hamilton Berry, and bassist Andrew Roitstein
The Toomai String Quintet is an ensemble devoted to playing a variety of musical traditions from around the world, creating its own string arrangements, and commissioning new works. The award-winning group has been engaging audiences across the United States for over a decade, performing concerts in collaboration with presenters such as Carnegie Hall, 92 Y, and the Juilliard School, among others. A group of world-class musicians and passionate educators, Toomai combines these elements to create highly interactive programs for audiences of all ages.
Central to Toomai’s mission is the expansion of the Latin American repertoire for string ensemble. Toomai has arranged or commissioned over 20 works by Latin American composers. The ensemble also facilitates educational workshops that teach young people creative approaches to music through the lens of Cuban and Brazilian traditions. In 2018, Toomai released its debut album, Cuerdas Cubanas; in 2024, the group will release a new album of Brazilian music, Passos Brasileiros.
Hailed for their “light-handed authority” on their “magnificently executed” playing (the Squid’s Ear), Toomai has performed in many capacities throughout the United States, with appearances at Lincoln Center, the 92 Y, Philadelphia Arts Alliance, and for the Americas Society (NYC), and Bay Chamber Festival (Maine), among others. The quintet was a pilot ensemble for Carnegie Hall’s “Musical Connections” program, and they continue to perform regularly in schools, hospitals, and alternative care facilities throughout New York City. In addition, the Toomai String Quintet has brought its array of educational programs to students in California, Florida, and across the Northeast, and has presented interactive concerts in collaboration with organizations such as California Institute of the Arts, The Juilliard School, and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute.
Formed in 2007 at The Juilliard School, the quintet is named after Rudyard Kipling’s short story “Toomai of the Elephants” in which a young boy journeys into the jungle to witness the dance of the wild elephants. The Toomai String Quintet aspires to cultivate a similar sense of curiosity and discovery by searching for diverse music and sharing it with its audience.
The quintet members are violinists Emilie-Anne Gendron and Alex Fortes, violist George Meyer, cellist Hamilton Berry, and bassist Andrew Roitstein
