Born in
Japan to a Japanese father, Masahito Iwamoto, and an American mother, Marguerite (nee Magruder). She took violin lessons from
Anna Bubnova-Ono (Anna Dmitrievna Bubnova) after the age of six. 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 USA. She stayed there in a year and half, and took lessons by
George Enescu in Chicago, and
Louis Persinger in New York at The
Juilliard School. On 14 June 1950, she took a recital at the
Town Hall. She resumed to play a soloist after coming back to Japan. In addition, She founded the Iwamoto Mari String Quartet 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. == References ==