Iwamoto Mari

Who is Iwamoto Mari?

Iwamoto Mari was a Japanese violinist.

Born in Japan to a Japanese father and an American mother, she was a child prodigy, winning the All Japan Music Competition's violin category in 1937.

From 1946 to 1949, she was a professor at the Tokyo Academy of Music, resigning the post in 1949 in order to spend a year in the US.

She founded the Iwamoto Mari String Quartet in Japan in 1967, with violinist Tomoda Yoshiaki, viola player Suganuma Junji and cellist Kuranuma Toshio; the quartet won a special prize at the Suntory Music Award in 1979, shortly prior to Mari's death from cancer on 11 May 1979.