Hiroshi Iizuka was born in Maebashi, Japan on July 21, 1945. He apprenticed in Tokyo under Soroku Murata, Geigenbaumeister, from 1971 to 1973. 

From 1973 to 1977, Iizuka apprenticed under and worked for Josef Kantuscher, Geigenbaumeister, in Mittenwald, Germany. He acquired a Journeyman’s diploma from the German Chamber of Handwork in 1974, with a prize for the violin made for the examination. 

Iizuka established his own shop in Pennsylvania in the United States in 1977. Since then, he has worked predominantly in the building of new instruments. Besides the traditional style of violin-family instruments, he developed his own model of a “viola d’amore” style viola in 1979, and the “rubenesque” model in 1992. Over the past 30 years, Iizuka has made more than 380 instruments that are being played worldwide, over half of which are violas. He has made 7 celli to date.