Montana native Korine Fujiwara is a founding member of the Carpe Diem String Quartet, a devoted and sought-after chamber musician and teacher, and a gifted composer and arranger.

One of the most unique and sought-after chamber ensembles on the concert stage today, the Carpe Diem String Quartet is a boundary-breaking ensemble that has earned widespread critical and audience acclaim for its innovative programming and electrifying performances. Carpe Diem defies easy classification with programming that includes classical, Gypsy, tango, folk, pop, rock, and jazz-inspired music. The quartet appears on traditional concert series (Carnegie Hall, NYC, Jordan Hall, Boston MA, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; Chautauqua Institute, Chautauqua NY; Asolo Theater, Sarasota FL) as well as unconventional venues (Poisson Rouge, NYC; Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, Half-Moon Bay, CA; The Redlands Bowl, Redlands, CA; The Mug & Brush, Columbus, OH). Carpe Diem has been awarded five transformative grants from the PNC Foundation for their community outreach in Central Ohio. Carpe Diem has become one of America’s premiere “indie” string quartets without sacrificing its commitment to the traditional quartet repertoire, and continues to rack up accolades and awards. The group has completed recording the complete cycle of the nine string quartets of Sergei Taneyev for Naxos. New recording projects include Claudel , the musical score for a ballet commissioned by Columbus Dance Theatre (composed by Ms. Fujiwara), as well as the complete string quartets by Jonathan Leshnoff.

Ms. Fujiwara is the Artist-in-Residence for the string program at the Tacoma School of the Arts and teaches violin at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma Washington. She served for many years on the music faculty of Ohio Wesleyan University and is in great demand for master classes and clinics throughout the United States. Korine’s students have been accepted into the performance programs of such institutions as Indiana University, Cincinnati College Conservatory, and Northwestern University to continue their musical studies.

She performs annually with the Snake River Chamber Players in Keystone and Dillon, CO, and was a founding member of the Marble Cliff Chamber Players, based in Ohio. She has been heard throughout the Northwest United States on public radio as a performer at the Olympic Music Festival in Seattle, Washington with members of the Philadelphia String Quartet. Critics have described her performances as “engaging” and “with finesse and perfection.” She has been invited to participate in numerous international music festivals, including the MidAmerica Chamber Music Festival, the Victoria International Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, the Focus! Festival of 20th Century Music at Lincoln Center, and the Summergarden Festival at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, where she collaborated with composer John Cage. She is a sought-after and well-respected adjudicator and teacher and served as an Artist/Teacher-in-residence with the Icelandic Youth Orchestra in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Korine has received multiple commissions including works for opera, chamber ensembles, chorus, concerti, and music for modern dance. Her works have been performed throughout the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Italy, and Japan. Named as one of Strings Magazine’s “25 Contemporary Composers to Watch”, critics have remarked of Ms Fujiwara’s music, “The ear is forever tickled by beautifully judged music that manages to be sophisticated and accessible at the same time,” “Contains a very rare attribute in contemporary classical music: happiness.” (Fanfare Magazine); “She knows how to exploit all the resources of string instruments alone and together; her quartet writing is very democratic, with solos for everyone; her solo violin writing is fiendishly difficult.” (Strings Magazine). Korine is a recipient of an Opera America Commissioning Grant from the Opera Grants for Female Composers program, made possible through the generosity of The Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, for a collaborative production as composer with Stephen Wadsworth, librettist, Opera Columbus, and ProMusica Chamber Orchestra.

Ms. Fujiwara is a gifted performer on both the violin and viola, and holds degrees from The Juilliard School and Northwestern University, where she studied with Joseph Fuchs and Myron Kartman, respectively. Her other mentors include Harvey Shapiro, Robert Mann, and Joel Krosnik. Ms. Fujiwara is a member of the music honorary society Pi Kappa Lambda.

Korine began her orchestral career with the Brooklyn Philharmonic and served as a principal player and soloist with the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra of Columbus. She is also a former member of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, where she held the position of Acting Assistant Principal Second Violin.

Korine performs on a 1790 Contreras violin, 2004 Kurt Widenhouse viola, and bows by three of today’s finest makers, Paul Martin Siefried, Ole Kanestrom and Charles Espey, all of Port Townsend, WA, USA.