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Ray Iwazumi performs in numerous concerts in the U.S. and abroad. In New York, he has given performances in and around Lincoln Center, appearing both in solo and chamber music at The Juilliard Theater, Alice Tully Hall, and the Donnell Library Hall. He has also been featured as a chamber musician in the Focus! festivals and as a composer-performer in the Beyond the Machine festivals at Lincoln Center. Centering his performing activities in New York City, Tokyo, Japan, and Brussels, Belgium, he has also performed in The Netherlands, Germany, and South Korea.

He also plays frequently in a violin duo with his sister Amy as the Ray and Amy Violin Duo, often performing in addition to established classics, his own original works and arrangements, including works for violin and electronics. The Ray and Amy Violin Duo was awarded a Career Grant from Salon de Virtuosi in 2005, and has since been featured on several occasions on New York’s classical music radio station, WQXR-FM and wqxr.com.

With a keen interest in musicological research, Dr. Iwazumi’s in-depth research on Eugène Ysaÿe’s Six Sonates pour violon seul, Op. 27 has brought forth significant findings on these landmark masterworks. As such, he shares his leading expertise of this repertoire through lectures, lecture-performances, and masterclasses worldwide, and has also written several articles on the subject, including one for The Strad. He is currently researching and cataloging the rare materials and manuscripts held in the Louis Persinger Special Collection and Viola Mitchell Collection at The Juilliard School, and is also active as a music research consultant.

Born in Seattle, Washington (U.S.A.), his first public performance was with the Clear Lake Symphony in Texas at the age of six, performing the Bach a-minor Violin Concerto. At seven, he gave his first public recital in Galveston, Texas. Moving to Canada, he won numerous awards at the Kiwanis Music Festival, and first place twice in the Canadian Music Competition. In 1988, he moved to New York to attend The Juilliard School, where he became a scholarship student of Dorothy DeLay and won competitions both at The Juilliard School and at the Aspen Music Festival.

Dr. Iwazumi’s principal teachers have been Dorothy DeLay, Hyo Kang, and Igor Oistrakh. He completed his Bachelors, Masters, and Doctor of Musical Arts Degree at The Juilliard School studying with Dorothy DeLay and Hyo Kang, and resided in Belgium to study intensively with Igor Oistrakh under the auspices of a Fulbright grant. In Brussels, he received two additional Masters degrees (one in Violin and another in Chamber Music) from the Koninklijk Muziekconservatorium Brussel (Brussels Royal Conservatory) with the rank of ‘highest distinction’ and perfect scores in violin performance for both degrees. In New York, his outstanding research and work earned him the prestigious Richard F. French Doctoral Prize from The Juilliard School. As a Starling Fellow at The Juilliard School, Dr. Iwazumi has taught as a teaching assistant to Hyo Kang and the late Dorothy DeLay. He currently teaches independently and at The Thurnauer School of Music in Tenafly, New Jersey.