Iwamoto Mari

Iwamoto Mari (巖本 真理, 19 JAN 1927―11 MAY 1979) was a Japanese violinist.

IWAMOTO Mari
Iwamoto Mari in 1948
Born	January 19, 1926
Died	May 11, 1979 (aged 53) Tokyo
Resting place	Japan
Other names	巖本メリー・エステル → 巖本 真理
Occupation	violinist
Relatives	Grandfather: Iwamoto Yoshiharu― Educator for women, Christian. Grandmother:Wakamatsu Shizuko― Educator, translator, and novelist.

Biography

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 age 6. 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 lesson of George Enescu in Chicago, and Louis Persinger in New York at The Juilliard School.[1] On 14 June 1950, she took a recital at the Town Hall.[2]

She resumed to play a soloist after coming back to Japan.[3] 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

• Margaret Mehl (September 10, 2011). "Three Violin Maidens (2): Iwamoto Mari". Retrieved 2012-05-03.
• Louis Frédéric (2002). Japan Encyclopedia. Harvard University Press. Accessible via Google Books.

Note

1. Her autobiography: YAMAGUCHI Reiko, "IWAMOTO Mari: Meaning of life", Shinchosha Publishing Co, Ltd., 1984.
2. The New York Herald Tribune
3. She was a favorite female violinist in Japan at that time. On the "Banshun"(Late Spring) filmed by Yasujirō Ozu, Ozu used a scene of her violin recital.

The clip from the Ozu film "Late Spring" can be see here. http://www.otto5.com/_video/Iwamoto_Clip.mp4