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Ray Iwazumi, violinist, concertizes as soloist and chamber musician, and is frequently invited to present lectures and masterclasses at prestigious institutions in the U.S.A., Europe, and Japan. His combination of virtuosity, scholarship, research, and performance is guided by the artistic principles of his mentors, Dorothy DeLay and Igor Oistrakh.
Ray’s musicological contributions are internationally recognized, particularly for his contributions to research, editing, and analysis of the works of the great Belgian violinist and composer, Eugène Ysaÿe. His dissertation on Ysaÿe’s Six Sonatas for solo violin was a landmark document detailing the compositional and violinistic processes of this important musical figure. He has helped catalog rare materials and manuscripts at The Juilliard School, written articles for journals such as The Strad, Notes, Fontes, Revue belge de musicologie, and Revue de la Société liégoise de Musicologie with a four-year serial in the Japanese journal, String. He has also edited the works of Vieuxtemps, Wieniawski, and Ysaÿe for G. Henle Verlag in Munich, Germany.
Ray is also the Founder and CEO of Kontomo, a new dynamic playbill app and service that enables creating a temporary micro social network between organizers, artists, and eventgoers. Combining his many years of experience as violin soloist, musicologist, and commercial music industry consultant, his mission with Kontomo is audience development for the performing arts – to give artists more ways for their audience to have profound experiences.
Ray is a graduate of The Juilliard School, where he received his Bachelor, Masters, and Doctorate degrees, and is also a graduate of the Koninklijk Muziekconservatorium Brussel (Royal Conservatory of Brussels), where he received further Masters in Violin and Masters in Chamber Music, both with highest distinction.