A Pole born in Łódź, Rafal Zambrzycki-Payne studied at the Yehudi Menuhin School, Royal Northern College of Music, and from 2000 at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna. The number of his teachers included Lord Yehudi Menuhin, Maurizio Fuks, Wen Zhou Li, Gerhard Schulz, and Jadwiga Kaliszewska. He is a laureate and winner of the 1st Prize of BBC Young Musician of the Year, BBC Radio 2’s 1st Prize Young Musician of the Year, and the 2nd Prize of the International Violin Competition in Luxembourg. The musician performed as a soloist with London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, English Chamber Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, and Sinfonia Varsovia. The artist participated in musical festival of great renown: Menuhin Festival in Gstaad, Davos, Euro Musica Vitae, Domaine Forget, Paxos, and Prussia Cove in the UK. In the Début series, EMI released his first disc with works by Britten, Grieg, and Szymanowski.
Rafal Zambrzycki-Payne made the British first performance of Violin concerto by Alexander Arutunian (2004), and later also the Armenian, at the concert commemorating the 80th birthday of the composer.
Since 2005, he has been the concert master of the Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt (BBC Proms, Berlin MaerzMusik, Luzern, Salzburg, and SWR Schwetzingen), and performed with them as a soloist in Terrain by Ferneyhough and in Chamber concerto by Berg.
Rafal Zambrzycki-Payne plays a violin built by J.B. Villaume in 1844.