Ayane Kozasa

Hailed for her “magnetic, wide-ranging tone and her “rock solid technique” (Philidelphia Inquirer), violist Ayane Kozasa, is a sought-after chamber musician, collaborator and educator.

Since winning the 2011 Primrose International Viola Competition— where she also captured awards for best chamber music and commissioned work performances—Ayane has appeared on stages across the world, from Carnegie, Wigmore, and Suntory Hall to Ravinia, Aspen, and the Marlboro Music Festival. She is a passionate advocate for the expansion of viola repertoire, and has commissioned multiple new works featuring the viola, including “American Haiku” by Paul Wiancko and “K’Zohar Harakia” by Judd Greenstein.

Ayane is a member of the San Francisco-based Kronos Quartet. Their current season tours include performance venues ranging from Carnegie Hall to the Vicenza Jazz Festival, and they will be making stops in Brazil, Japan, Sweden, and Latvia. Alongside fellow new member Gabriela Díaz, their 2025 Carnegie performance was hailed by the New York Times as a “glow up” where the inner voices were the “quartet’s engines of emotional intensity.” Many of Kronos’s concerts include dynamic collaborators such as Indonesian singer Peni Candra Rini, visual storyteller Ariel Aberg-Riger, and composer Terry Riley. Ayane is also a member of the quartet collective Owls, whose debut album Rare Birds was just released on New Amsterdam Records this spring.

From 2011-2022, Ayane was a founding member of the Aizuri Quartet, who were the 2018 quartet-in-residence at the Metropolitan Museum and the grand prize winners of both the Osaka International String Quartet Competition and MPrize Chamber Arts Competition. The Aizuri Quartet’s debut album, Blueprinting—which features the music of 5 American composers, all commissioned by the quartet—was nominated for a Grammy Award and named one of NPR’s top 10 classical albums of 2018.

Much of Ayane’s current work involves mentoring aspiring young musicians through programs like the Green Lake Chamber Music Camp and Olympic Music Festival and now, Meadowmount School of Music. From 2022-2025, Ayane was on the viola faculty at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. She previously served on the viola faculty at Adelphi University in Long Island, and as guest faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Ayane is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, Kronberg Academy in Germany, and Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied viola with Misha Amory, Roberto Díaz, Nobuko Imai, and Kirsten Docter. Aside from music, she enjoys baking, hiking, camping, and creating animation.