Akiko Suwanai

is a Japanese classical violinist.

At the age of 18, she became the youngest winner of the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1990. In addition, she was awarded second prize in the Paganini Competition in 1988 and Queen Elisabeth Competition in 1989 and is a laureate of the Music Competition of Japan.

She has studied with Toshiya Eto at the Toho Gakuen School of Music, with Dorothy DeLay and Cho-Liang Lin at the Juilliard School of Music while at Columbia University, and with Uwe-Martin Haiberg at the Universität der Künste Berlin.

Until 2019 she played the 1714 Dolphin Stradivarius, on loan from the Nippon Music Foundation. After it was returned she received the "Charles Reade" Guarneri del Gesù on loan from Japanese collector Ryuji Ueno.

Early life and career Suwanai was born in Tokyo, Japan. At the age of 2 and a half, she showed an interest in sound, so her parents took her to a nearby violin class, where she first encountered the instrument. She began learning the violin at age 3, starting with weekly lessons. From age 4, her lessons increased to twice a week, where she remembered looking forward to each one. On summer break of her first year in elementary school, her family moved to Machida City, west of Tokyo where she started attending a music school from the second grade. In 1979, Suwanai entered the private Toho Gakuen School of Music’s affiliated ‘Music Class for Children’, a specialised and competitive program across Japan for gifted students. During her childhood, due to her father’s job transfer, she relocated to Nagoya for a period where she studied and was tutored under Shinji Nishizaki, the father of violinist Takako Nishizaki. When she was 14, she studied under the violinist Toshiya Eto. During her middle school years, she won the Japan Student Music Competition (Middle School Division).

Discography Bruch: Concerto No. 1 / Scottish Fantasy Akiko Suwanai, violin Sir Neville Marriner, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields November 11, 1997: Philips Classics Records Akiko Suwanai: Souvenir Akiko Suwanai, violin; Phillip Moll, piano June 8, 1998: Philips Classics Records Dvořák: Violin Concerto, etc. Akiko Suwanai, violin Iván Fischer, Budapest Festival Orchestra October 9, 2001: Decca Music Group Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E Minor / Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D Major Akiko Suwanai, violin Vladimir Ashkenazy, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra December 20, 2001: Decca Music Group Brahms, Dvořák, Janáček Akiko Suwanai, violin May 8, 2002: Philips Classics Records Sibelius & Walton Violin Concertos Akiko Suwanai, violin Sakari Oramo, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra 2003: Decca Music Group Poème Akiko Suwanai, violin Charles Dutoit, Philharmonia Orchestra of London November 9, 2004: Decca Music Group Bach: Violin Concertos Akiko Suwanai, violin Chamber Orchestra of Europe May 2, 2006: Decca Music Group

Bach: Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin Akiko Suwanai, violin November 24, 2021: Decca Music Group