COMPOSER-PERFORMER · CELLO
Andrew Yee
2x Grammy
Award-Winner Attacca Quartet
Founding member ABOUT
Andrew Yee (she/her) is a two-time Grammy Award–winning cellist and an increasingly vital compositional voice working across concert music, opera, film, and television. Equally at home onstage, in the studio, and in collaborative creation, her work is driven by curiosity, emotional clarity, and a deep commitment to storytelling.
She is a founding member of the Attacca Quartet, whose albums of Caroline Shaw’s string quartets Orange and Evergreen each received Grammy Awards for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance. Known for their stylistic range, the quartet can also be heard on the score to Alfonso Cuarón’s Apple TV+ series Disclaimer (music by Finneas O’Connell) and on Billie Eilish’s album Hit Me Hard and Soft.
As a composer, she has built a distinctive body of work that bridges classical forms, experimental theater, and screen scoring. She co-composed the score for Wu Tsang’s MOBY DICK; or, The Whalewith Caroline Shaw — a major interdisciplinary work premiered in Zurich and later performed by the New York Philharmonic. Her music for film and television includes Love, Jamie (PBS American Masters), and two seasons of the BBC series We Might Regret This, where she also appears as a performer.
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Last year, Yee co-created a radical reimagining of Bizet’s Carmen, which premiered at the Schauspielhaus Zürich, contributing original music woven into the operatic fabric to reshape the work through a contemporary, queer lens. That same season, she premiered Trans Requiem, a large-scale work for orchestra, choir, and trans soloists at Trinity Church Wall Street in New York City. Featuring NOVUS NY, the Trinity Choir and Youth Chorus, and trans vocal soloists, Trans Requiem stands as one of the first works of its kind — both a memorial and a celebration, honoring trans lives with defiance, tenderness, and power.
In May 2024, Yee premiered an original video installation with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, a visceral exploration of sound as physical experience, and meditation on the deaf community's experience. Composed and performed by Yee, the work combines cello performance with choreography by Samantha Figgins, film by Tristan Cook, and cinematography by Zac Nicholson. Designed to be experienced through the SUBPAC tactile audio system, the piece invites audiences to feel music through vibration and movement, while not offering the hearing public the option to use their hearing to experience the work.
Yee’s recent and upcoming commissions include new works for the Minnesota Philharmonic Orchestra, the Thalea String Quartet, Leilehua Lanzilotti, Moab Music Festival, Palaver Strings, and Caroline Shaw.
As a soloist, Yee has appeared with orchestras worldwide, performing repertoire ranging from Tavener’s The Protecting Veil to Strauss’s Don Quixote and Four Last Songs alongside original works and reimagined classics. Her ongoing solo project Halfie — an autobiographical multimedia performance drawing on her experience as a biracial trans woman — was featured on WQXR’s Artist Propulsion Lab and culminated with an audio memoir called Halfie.
In 2018, Yee co-founded ChamberQUEER, a Brooklyn-based collective and festival dedicated to amplifying LGBTQ+ voices in classical music and fostering radically inclusive performance spaces. The project reflects her broader commitment to reshaping the field through both artistic excellence and structural care.
Andrew Yee lives in New York City. Her son Otis is the love of her life.
She plays on an 1884 Eugenio Degani cello on loan from the Five Partners Foundation.
www.andrewyeecellist.com
VIDEOS
Videos
Upcoming Album Releases
Programs & Repertoire
Program One
or, The Whale
Caroline Shaw and Andrew Yee — duo and original compositions, with one detour into Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time. Platoon Records.
Program Two
Trans Requiem
Trinity Choir, NOVUS NY, and soloists Breanna Sinclairé, Katherine Goforth, and Andrew Yee. New Amsterdam Records.
Program Three
Kapaemahu
Leilehua Lanzillotti and Andrew Yee — duo and original composition. Lō'ihi Records.
Program Four
Down Where The Trees Grow Together
The music of Arthur Russell and J.S. Bach, with Andrew Yee and her two oldest friends on harmony.
On Stage
Featured Projects
or, The Whale
Composer-Performer
A duo program pairing cellist-composer Andrew Yee with composer-violinist Caroline Shaw, longtime friends and collaborators, drawn from their album of the same name on Platoon Records. The program features their own compositions and re-contextualized works by other composers, including a movement from Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, moving between classical writing, traditional music, and reimagined sound worlds.
Trans Requiem
Composer-Performer
A large-scale work for orchestra, choir, and trans soloists composed by cellist-composer Andrew Yee and commissioned by Trinity Church Wall Street in New York City. The premiere featured NOVUS NY, the Trinity Choir and Youth Chorus, and trans vocal soloists Breanna Sinclairé and Katherine Goforth alongside Yee. Conceived as both a memorial and a celebration honoring trans lives, the work was paired in performance with Barber's Adagio for Strings and Pauline Oliveros's The World Wide Tuning Meditation. A recording is slated for release on New Amsterdam Records.