VC Artist Aizuri Quartet’s Violist and Cellist Step Down

After 11 years in the quartet, founding violist Ayane Kozasa and cellist Karen Ouzounian are departing to pursue new projects

Violist Ayane Kozasa and cellist Karen Ouzounian of VC Artist Aizuri Quartet will leave the group this summer. Their successors will be named by the quartet’s violinists Emma Frucht and Miho Saegusa before the next concert season.

In addition to her full-time viola professorship at Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music, Kozasa will be pursuing new creative projects, while Ouzounian will be focusing on her solo career, plus new interdisciplinary collaborations.

This news comes as the quartet announces their new album, “Earthdrawn Skies” on Azica Records, to be released on June 30, 2023. The album features music by Hildegard von Bingen, Eleanor Alberga, Komitas Vardapet, and Jean Sibelius, and will be the final album for the current formation of the Aizuri Quartet.

“We’ve treasured our time making music with Ayane and Karen over the last eleven years,” Frucht and Saegusa posted on Facebook. “Together, we realized the dream of starting and building a quartet from the ground up, and what wonderful adventures we’ve had!

“We thank them for being such invaluable partners and for bringing boundless creativity and energy to our quartet,” they continued. “Our work has allowed Aizuri to unlock incredible possibilities and bring new life to the concept of a string quartet.

“We’re excited to nurture this legacy as we continue to grow and evolve in Aizuri’s next chapter,” they added. “It's bittersweet that our time with them is coming to an end — while we’ll miss them dearly, we wish them all the best in their new journeys!”

Formed in 2012, the New York-based Aizuri Quartet has won top prizes at the 2018 M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition, the 2017 Osaka International Chamber Music Competition, and the 2015 Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition.

Its debut album, "Blueprinting," which included new works written for the group by five American composers, was nominated for a GRAMMY Award in 2019 and named one of NPR Music’s Best Classical Albums of 2018.

Additionally, the group has served as Quartet-in-Residence at the Curtis Institute of Music, New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, and the Ravinia Festival's Steans Music Institute.