Aizuri Quartet
MIHO SAEGUSA, violin
ARIANA KIM, violin • Primary Suzuki teacher: Ellen Kim
AYANE KOZASA, viola • Primary Suzuki teacher: Louise Rossi
KAREN OUZOUNIAN, cello
Praised by the Philadelphia Inquirer as “in full possession of that most elusive of string quartet qualities: the balance between charisma of the individual and cohesion of the collective,” the Aizuri Quartet s a top prizewinner in the 2015 Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition in London. Currently the String QuartetinResidence at the Curtis Institute of Music, the Quartet appears in Curtis on Tour performances throughout Europe, the United States and Latin America, and in various venues throughout Philadelphia, including the Barnes Foundation, the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Curtis’s Field Concert Hall, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, World Café Live, and on WRTI’s musicianhosted radio special “Philadelphia Music Makers.” In addition to working closely with the Curtis Institute of Music’s renowned faculty, the Aizuri Quartet is featured throughout the CurtisCoursera online course “The World of the String Quartet,” hosted by Arnold Steinhardt.
The Aizuri Quartet’s 20152016 season includes debut recitals at the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Schneider Concerts in New York City, Wolf Trap, and multiple appearances as the Ernst Stiefel String QuartetinResidence at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts. The Quartet will premiere newly commissioned works by composers Caroline Shaw and Paul Wiancko, in addition to collaborating with pianists Jonathan Biss and Ignat Solzhenitsyn, and clarinetist Michael Rusinek.
Highlights of previous seasons include performances in Bremen, Dresden, Paris and Salzburg, at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and New York City’s Morgan Library and Museum with cellist Peter Wiley, and throughout Chile, Costa Rica and Mexico with violist Roberto Díaz. The Quartet has enjoyed collaborations with eighth blackbird, the Aeolus String Quartet, poet Denice Frohman, and composers Lembit Beecher and Andrew Lipke. Formed in 2012 and comprising graduates of The Juilliard School and Curtis Institute of Music, the Aizuri Quartet was the resident ensemble of the 2014 Ravinia Festival’s Steans Music Institute.
