Ik-Hwan Bae was born in Seoul, Korea, and made his professional debut with the Seoul Philharmonic at the age of 12. Two years later he became the youngest recipient of the Korean Government Award in Arts.
After studying with Ivan Galamian at the Juilliard School of Music, Ik-Hwan Bae held a professorship at the University of Connecticut between 1976-79. His recitals in Amsterdam, Brussels, Hague and New York were received with much acclaim. Some of the ensembles he has appeared with are the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, the French Radio Orchestra, the National Orchestra of Belgium, Liege Philharmonic, Rochester Philharmonic, the National Orchestra of Mexico, TASHI, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and The Chick Corea - Gary Burton Duo.

Ik-Hwan Bae performs in festivals world-wide. In 1985, he won Second Prize at the Queen Elisabeth Competition and also was a prize winner at the Munich International Competition in 1984. In 1986 he was a recipient of the Solo Recitalist Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
He was artistic director of the Bargemusic Ltd., one of the leading presenters of chamber music in New York City, for thirteen years, until 1995. The Complete Brandenburg Concertos recorded by the Bargemusic under his direction is available under the label of Koch.

As concertmaster of the Hwaum Chamber Orchestra in Korea, which is a conductorless string orchestra, he has led them to Cracow, Poland and the Casais Festival in Puerto Rico.
Much sought after as a pedagogue, Ik-Hwan Bae is a professor at the Indiana University where he directs the string chamber music program as well as teaching violin classes, and has taught at the Peabody Institute of Music, the Manhattan School of Music and the Korean National Institutes for the Arts. Every year he gives master classes world-wide.

Ik-Hwan Bae has been a jury member of the Munich ARD competition in Germany and the Carl Nielson International Violin Competition in Denmark. He has recorded for RCA, ECM, Delos, and Koch labels.