photos by ella joklik, 2020
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inti figgis-vizueta (b. 1993) is a New York-based composer whose music focuses on combinations of various notational schemata, disparate and overlaid sonic plans, and collaborative unlearning of dominant vernaculars. She often writes magically real musics through the lens of personal identities, braiding a childhood of overlapping immigrant communities and Black-founded Freedom schools—in Chocolate City (DC)--with direct Andean & Irish heritage and a deep connection to the land. Her music has been praised by The Washington Post as “haunting” and “raw, scraping yet soaring”, The New York Times as “alternatively smooth & serrated”, and The National Sawdust Log as "all turbulence" and “quietly focused”. inti is the recipient of the 2020 ASCAP Foundation Fred Ho Award.
inti has been commissioned by JACK Quartet, Crash Ensemble, National Sawdust, Music from Copland House, The Phillips Collection, Jennifer Koh’s Arco Collaborative, and cellists Matt Haimovitz, Amanda Gookin, and Andrew Yee, among many others. Her music has been performed at the Kennedy Center, Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Ecstatic Music Festival, Spoleto Festival, Seattle Symphony’s Contemporary Music Marathon, and the New Latin Wave Festival. She has collaborated with artists such as Attacca Quartet, Spektral Quartet, Wild Up, Alarm Will Sound, Face the Music, and clarinetist Gleb Kanasevich as well as been featured by organizations such as the American Composer’s Orchestra, Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra, Montpelier Chamber Orchestra, the Institute for New Music, and Mizzou New Music. Her advocacy on access and education includes work with Luna Lab, Boulanger Initiative, New Music Gathering, and the International Contemporary Ensemble as well as articles for publications like American Composer’s Forum and Sound American. She curates for Score Follower, an online archive championing universal access to contemporary musics, with a focus on finding and featuring QTBIPOC artists. She gives regular lectures on her music, most recently at the Manhattan School of Music, UC Boulder, and American University. inti maintains a private teaching studio alongside a sought-after commission schedule, and invitations for masterclasses & composition workshops. She teaches through the lens of queerness, indigenous forms of transmission, and connecting diaspora to musicmaking through expanded & non-linear notational systems. inti studied privately with Marcos Balter, George Lewis, Donnacha Dennehy, and Felipe Lara. inti loves reading poetry, particularly Danez Smith and Joy Harjo. inti honors her Quechua bisabuela, who was the only woman butcher on the whole plaza central and used to fight men with a machete. |