Violist Ayane Kozasa is a chamber musician, collaborator, and educator. Winner of the 2011 Primrose International Viola Competition, Kozasa has been hailed for her “magnetic, wide-ranging tone” and “rock solid technique” (Philadelphia Inquirer). Kozasa is a founding member of the Aizuri Quartet, who was the 2018 quartet-in-residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the grand prize winner of both the Osaka International String Quartet Competition and MPrize Chamber Arts Competition. The Aizuri Quartet’s debut album Blueprinting was nominated for a GRAMMY Award and named one of NPR’s top 10 classical albums of 2018. In 2020, the quartet launched AizuriKids, an interactive web series for children that explores relationships between music and themes ranging from astrophysics to cooking. In 2022, Kozasa joined the viola faculty at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. She previously taught at Adelphi University in Long Island and has been a guest professor at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Kozasa is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, Kronberg Academy, and Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied viola with Misha Amory, Roberto Díaz, Nobuko Imai, and Kirsten Docter. www.ayanekozasa.com
