short vita

Praised by The Times for her “noble playing, with its rhythmic life, taut and rigorous,” Japanese violinist Akiko Suwanai was the youngest ever 1st prize winner of the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1990. Since then she has enjoyed a flourishing international career and appears regularly with celebrated maestros and orchestras.

In recent years, Akiko Suwanai performed with Orchestre de Paris and Paavo Järvi, Staatskapelle Dresden and Peter Eötvös, Bamberger Symphoniker and Herbert Blomstedt, Gürzenich-Orchester Köln and François-Xavier Roth, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and Vladimir Jurowski, Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse and Klaus Mäkelä, Philharmonia Orchestra with Tugan Sokhiev, Israel Philharmonic and Gianandrea Noseda, Rotterdam Philhamonic with Lahav Shani, Hong Kong Philharmonic and Jaap van Zweden among others.

Previously, she worked with the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic and Oslo Philharmonic among others, conductor collaborations have included Vladimir Ashkenazy, Seiji Ozawa, André Previn, Wolfgang Sawallisch Yevgeny Svetlanov and Yuri Temirkanov. Her extensive discography with Universal Music and Decca Classics has garnered much critical acclaim worldwide.

Akiko Suwanai is also widely recognised for her master interpretations of lesser-performed works and passion for new music. In 2007, she premiered Peter Eötvös' violin concerto Seven at Lucerne Festival under Pierre Boulez, and in the following year at the BBC Proms. She also gave Asian premieres such as violin concertos by James MacMillan, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Krzystof Penderecki among other works.

An extremely keen chamber musician, she enjoys longstanding collaborations with several artistic partners. Most recently, she has been invited to Martha Argerich Festival in Hamburg and Leif Ove Andsnes’s Festival in Rosendal, Norway.

Akiko Suwanai is the Artistic Director of the International Music Festival NIPPON which she launched in 2012.

She also served as a jury member at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, International Tchaikovsky Competition(2019) in Moscow as well as Concours international Long-Thibaud-Crespin in Paris.

As well as winning the International Tchaikovsky Competition, she has won numerous awards including the International Paganini Competition and the Queen Elisabeth International Competition.

Studied at the Toho Gakuen School of Music with Toshiya Eto, Columbia University and the Juilliard School of Music with Dorothy DeLay, Cho-Liang Lin and Felix Galimir, and at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin with Uwe-Martin Haiberg.

Akiko Suwanai performs on the “Charles Reade” Guarneri del Gesu violin c1732, on long-term loan from Dr. Ryuji Ueno, who has Japanese roots and lives in the United States.