Spain
Capturing audiences with her “staggering sonority” (The Straits Times, April 2025), Japanese violinist Akiko Suwanai is a musician of considerable versatility and breadth of repertoire. Since winning the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1990 she has enjoyed a flourishing career, performing internationally in chamber music and recital and engaging at the highest level with orchestras and conductors.
In the 2026/27 season, Suwanai will perform with notable orchestras and conductors including: Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra / Kahchun Wong, National Symphony Orchestra Taiwan/Andrey Boreyko, Basque National Orchestra/Philipp von Steinaecker, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Ilan Volkov, and New Zealand Symphony Orchestra/Andrew Manze. Displaying her versatility in a wide repertoire, she will perform works across the season from classic concertos by Sibelius, Prokofiev and Szymanowski to contemporary works including Dai Fujikura’s Double Concerto for flute, violin and orchestra, a work in which she made the World premiere with Radio Filharmonisch Orkest/Karina Canellakis. She will also appear at the GAIDA Festival, Lithuania’s leading contemporary music festival, performing works by Arvo Pärt and Tōru Takemitsu. With a strong commitment to education and to supporting the next generation of musicians, Suwanai will also serve on the jury of the 2026 Wieniawski Competition.
Highlights of the previous season included returns to Luzerner Sinfonieorchester/Duncan Ward, Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice/Lionel Bringuier, Budapest Festival Orchestra/Jaime Martín, and debuts with Mozarteumorchester Salzburg/Andrey Boreyko. She joined Hallé Orchestra and Principal Conductor Kahchun Wong on tour to China and gave performances in Manchester and Sheffield, as well as touring Spain with BBC National Orchestra of Wales under the baton of Jaime Martín with concerts in Cardiff and Swansea.
Known for her breadth of repertoire and passion for new music, Suwanai has premiered Peter Eötvös’ Seven at the Lucerne Festival under Pierre Boulez and at the BBC Proms under Susanna Mälkki. She has also given Asian premieres of important new violin concertos by James MacMillan, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Krzysztof Penderecki. Other notable performances of new works include Toshio Hosokawa’s Genesis with Gürzenich-Orchester/Osmo Vänskä, Guillaume Connesson’s Lost Horizons with St Louis Symphony Orchestra/Stephane Denève and recordings of works by Tōru Takemitsu with NHK Symphony Orchestra/Paavo Järvi.
Signed to Decca Classics, Suwanai is also universally acclaimed for her performances of the core violin repertoire and has released Brahms: The Sonatas for Violin and Piano (2024) and Bach’s Complete Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin (2022). In 2027, she will record Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto with Danish National Symphony Orchestra/Fabio Luisi for Deutsche Grammophon.
In 2012, Akiko launched the Nagoya- and Tokyo-based International Music Festival NIPPON as Artistic Director. This biennial festival presents a variety of guest orchestras and chamber concerts and commissions new works and world premieres by Japanese and international composers. At the festival Akiko has premiered new works including Karol Beffa’s Violin Concerto alongside Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and Dai Fujikura’s Pitter-Patter with Boris Berezovsky.
Suwanai performs on the “Charles Reade” Guarneri del Gesù violin (1732), generously loaned to her by Dr. Ryuji Ueno, a Japanese-American collector and philanthropist.
