Ms. Hisami Iijima was raised with the Suzuki Method in Japan from age 3. She has over 20 years of teaching experience privately as well as a faculty member at the leading music schools like Long Island Conservatory in NY, Florentine Music Center in NYC, Louisiana Academy of Performing Arts in LA, and most recently at the Arizona School for the Arts in Phoenix, AZ. She was also a violin instructor for the One Nation Program, a unique musical partnership between the Phoenix Symphony and the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community through a year long residency program that offers private and group music lessons and performances at the community's elementary school and high school. Currently she is part of a team who coaches high school orchestras in Paradise Valley School district, an outreach program through Paradise Valley Community College.

As a Suzuki teacher, she has taught at the Greater New Orleans Suzuki Music Camp and Fall Suzuki workshop by the Arizona Suzuki Association. She has been producing students who have won the concertmaster and principal  chairs in the Phoenix Youth Symphony, Metropolitan Youth Symphony, West Valley Youth Symphony, as well as All-State and Regional Orchestras. Her Suzuki training has included courses with Mark Bjork, Lorraine Fink, Linda Fiore, Michelle Higa George, Mary Cay Neal, and Doris Preucil. 

As a soloist, Ms. Iijima gave New York debut recital at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall as a prize winner of the prestigious Artist International Audition. She was also featured as a soloist in a presentation of the Jeffrey Ballet of Chicage at the Spoleto Festival USA.
 
As an orchestra musician, she had won various orchestra positions while she was still in school. She has been a tenured member of the Louisiana Philharmonic, Tucson Symphony, and Harrisburg Symphony. She has also served as Concertmaster with the Spoleto Festival Orchestra, Chautauqua Institution Festival Orchestra and the Mesa Symphony. Her orchestral engagements have taken her to Europe, and throughout North America. Currently she is a tenured member of Arizona Opera Orchestra and frequently performs with Phoenix Symphony Orchestra. In 2019 she has been appointed as Associate Concertmaster of the West Valley Symphony. 
 
Ms. Iijima has earned Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance from New England Conservatory of Music and Master of Fine Arts in Violin Performance from State University of New York Purchase College Conservatory, where she received the Eugene and Emily Grant Scholarship. She went on to pursue Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, where she was awarded a fellowship to study with Arnold Steinhardt, the first violinist of the legendary Guarneri Quartet.

Ms. Iijima has been a member of the American String Teachers Association, Suzuki Association of the Americas and Arizona Suzuki Association. She had served on the board for the Arizona Suzuki Association.