2026 FIU Music Festival: Toomai String Quintet

The FIU Music Festival welcomes the Toomai String Quintet for a program bringing together music, dance and the screen—including a suite from Carlos Rafael Rivera’s Grammy-winning score for the Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit.

Formed at The Juilliard School, Toomai is known for crossing musical traditions and expanding the repertoire for string ensemble. Its commitment to Latin American music has led to more than 30 arrangements and commissions and two acclaimed recordings, Cuerdas Cubanas and Passos Brasileiros.

The program places music by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Tania León and Cuban composer and guitarist Leo Brouwer alongside works by three composers with deep ties to FIU: Distinguished University Professor Orlando Jacinto García and alumni Carlos Rafael Rivera ’96 and Marcus Norris ’17.

Rivera’s Queen’s Gambit Suite draws from the score that earned him both Grammy and Emmy awards. A member of the School of Music’s first graduating class in 1996, Rivera has built an acclaimed career in film and television. Norris’s work spans concert music, opera, film and television, often bringing classical music into conversation with hip-hop, R&B and other contemporary traditions.

The concert’s theatrical centerpiece is García’s prohibido (prohibited). Premiered at the New World Center in January 2025 by the New World Symphony with dancers from Miami City Ballet, the work returns in an intimate version for Toomai. Dancers Emily Bromberg and Alexander Sokolov of Dimensions Dance Theatre of Miami perform Ariel Rose’s choreography, with video by Jacek Kolasinski and John Stuart.

Combining music, dance, video and spoken text in English and Spanish, prohibido confronts repression based on race, religion, beliefs, sexual orientation and other aspects of identity. The work reimagines García’s earlier string quartet I Never Saw Another Butterfly, written in memory of the children imprisoned at Terezín.

Preconcert Conversation | 4:30 p.m.

FIU alumni Carlos Rafael Rivera ’96 and Marcus Norris ’17 return to FIU for a special conversation with Orlando Jacinto García about their music, their connections to the university and careers spanning the concert hall, opera, film and television.

Concert Program

Tania León: Tumbao
Marcus Norris: My Idols Are Dead
Leo Brouwer: Música incidental campesina
Carlos Rafael Rivera: Queen’s Gambit Suite
Orlando Jacinto García: prohibido (prohibited)
Featuring dancers Emily Bromberg and Alexander Sokolov of Dimensions Dance Theatre of Miami
Choreography by Ariel Rose
Video by Jacek Kolasinski and John Stuart

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