Former first violinist of the Ying Quartet.
In 2012 Ayano was invited to give a TEDx talk at the University of Tokyo. Other past projects include a benefit performance for victims of the 2009 Haiti earthquake, a fundraiser in the aftermath of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake with sumo wrestler Konishiki, and the creation of her own Elderhostel “Day of Adventure” programs in NYC that gave an insider’s view of making music. As a recipient of the Frank Huntington Beebe Fellowship, Ayano conducted research of scores at the Bartók Archives in Budapest, Hungary.
During the summers, she has performed at the Marlboro, Ravinia, Kingston, Skaneateles, Caramoor, Bowdoin, and Moab music festivals, as well as at Prussia Cove’s International Musicians Seminar, the Canberra International Festival (Australia), and the Adams Festival (New Zealand), among others. She has been invited to tour France and the west and east coasts of the U.S. and France with “Musicians from Marlboro” (Marlboro Festival) and “Musicians from the Steans Institute” (Ravinia Festival). She is also a founding member of the exciting conductor-less string orchestra, ECCO (East Coast Chamber Orchestra), which is composed of soloists and leaders of quartets and orchestras from around the United States. Because of her own experience beginning the violin in a public school program in Boston at the age of seven, Ayano has given numerous programs for children across the U.S. from Bethlehem, New Hampshire to Columbia, Missouri, to Denton, Maryland, including many in the greater Philadelphia area.