©Photo: Takaki Kumada

Akiko Suwanai

Violin

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“Akiko Suwanai, a tall, imposing violinist of striking stage presence, raised her bow for a sombre, intense descent of notes at the start: this was big-boned, noble playing, with its rhythmic life taut and rigorous.”
(The Times)

Japanese violinist, Akiko Suwanai has established herself as one of the most sought-after artists of her generation. Since winning the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1990 she has enjoyed a flourishing career, engaging at the highest level performing chamber music and with orchestras and conductors internationally.

Highlights of her 2021/22 season include tours with The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen/Järvi and the Budapest Festival Orchestra/Fischer as well as weeks with NHK Symphony Orchestra/Otaka, St Louis Symphony Orchestra/Denève, National Symphony Orchestra Taiwan/Elts and Castilla & Leon Symphony Orchestra/Hayward.

Akiko recently recorded the complete Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin by Bach for Universal, due for release in Autumn 2021 and will give a six-date solo recital tour of these works in Japan including concerts in Tokyo and Nagoya this season. Regularly invited to major chamber music festivals, Akiko has long standing collaborations with Martha Argerich and took part in her birthday celebrations this summer. Elsewhere she has performed at Leif Ove Andsnes Chamber Music Festival in Rosendal, the Stresa Festival in Italy and Stavanger Chamber Music Festival.

Universally acclaimed for her performances of key violin repertoire, Akiko is also widely recognised for her master interpretations of lesser-performed works and passion for new music. In previous seasons she has recorded works by Takemitsu with the NHK Symphony Orchestra/Järvi for Sony and given premieres of Peter Eötvös’ Seven at the Lucerne Festival under Pierre Boulez, and in the following year at the BBC Proms conducted by Susanna Mälkki. She has also given Asian premieres of important new works including violin concertos by James MacMillan, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Krzysztof Penderecki.

Akiko Suwanai: Korngold- Violin Concerto (excerpt) © Detroit Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leonard Slatkin

Highlights of the previous season included concerts with Hamburg Symphoniker for the reopening of the Laeiszhalle including Mozart Violin Concerto No.1 conducted by Cambreling and a successful debut of Ligeti’s Violin Concerto with Orquesta Sinfonica del Principado de Asturias. Other season highlights included Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with NHK SO and Japan Philharmonic.

In 2012, Akiko launched and became Artistic Director of the Tokyo based ‘International Music Festival NIPPON’ which presents a variety of orchestral and chamber concerts as well as regular commissions of new works and world premieres by Japanese and international composers. With the Festival, Akiko has premiered new works including Karol Beffa’s Violin Concerto alongside The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and Dai Fujikura’s Pitter-Patter with Boris Berezovsky.

Akiko performs on the “Charles Reade” Guarneri del Gesu violin generously loaned to her by the Japanese-American collector and philanthropist, Dr. Ryuji Ueno.

Akiko Suwanai - Walton: Violin Concerto (excerpt) © Universal Classics

Akiko Suwanai - Sibelius: Violin Concerto (excerpt) © Universal Classics

“Suwanai, with full-throated flourish, took a couple of approaches to the parley. At first, she used a notably flexible sense of tempo to command the dialogue, calling extra attention to notes and phrases; in the finale, her big, focused, almost piercing tone took over, carving sonic space, a racecar driver weaving in and out of (and even cutting off) traffic.”

(Washington Post, February 2020)

“Akiko Suwanai… took the stage for a blockbuster performance of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto… She drew forth a searing tone from the 1714 Delfino Stradivarius, an instrument matched beautifully to her bold melodic flair.”

(Washington Classical review, February 2020)

“Her reading of the Third Violin Concerto in G major (K216) was as perfect a conception as one hoped possible… Every passage and phrase sounded freshly minted and pristine in clarity…. The slow movement was an epitome of grace, and one wished it not to end.”

(Bachtrack, December 2019)

“The first notes played by Akiko Suwanai impress with magnitude of sound, the depth of dense and dark timbre throughout the registers. The phrasing captivates with exemplary ductility and seduction”

(ClassicToulouse, December 2018)

“Although the work [Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1] suffers from having been played endlessly, it was a wonderful performance. Suwanai has a round, beautiful sound and perfect technique, devoid of unnecessary mannerisms. She did not try to move us “by force” but simply devoted herself completely to the music and let the notes do their work. [….] Truly lovely playing”

(OPUS Magazine, May 2018)

“This superb composition in four parts, which constantly solicits the violin, is played by Akiko Suwanai, who, through her wide sound, ensures its virtuosity and true warmth, in music written with great harmonic knowledge and constant melody.”

(Concerto.net, October 2017)

“Akiko Suwanai may be small in stature, but in no way did this impact on her ability to create a big sound or tackle complex, virtuosic passages. The way she approached the [Korngold’s Violin Concerto] opening with warmth, depth, and beauty, giving it such spine-tingling clarity, made one immediately realise that this was a very impressive soloist.”

(Cut Common Magazine, April 2017)

“Hearing Akiko Suwanai play Mendelssohn’s E minor Violin Concerto made one realize that this wonderful work’s virtues are often taken for granted – the skilfully contrived transitions and the precise balance between lyricism and dynamism. Suwani’s lithe playing, refulgent tone and impeccable taste ensured that those qualities received their due.”

(Norman Stinchcombe, Birmingham Post, October 2016)

“Unfailingly assured and polished”

(Peter Dobrin, Philly.com, April 2016)

“…It was her sheer warmth and communicative skills that made the difference. In the Larghetto Suwanai again let the music breath unhurriedly: there was an improvisational quality in her playing, a gentle poetry that was most moving. In the finale she brought a joyous quality to the triple rhythm: in her hands the music had a dance-like nature.”

(Alan Sanders, Seen and Heard International, February 2016)

“Akiko Suwanai is, moreover, a superb soloist in the Violin Concerto. She plays with a swirling virtuosity which, in a perfectly natural way, works alongside the objective harshness of the work, and you can hear the free-spirited thinking described by Carl Nielsen as the glorious boundaries of our freewill. “It demands you to listen, look, think, be silent, weigh and choose.”

(Magnus Haglund, Göteborgs-Posten, June 2015)

“The poco adagio was sublime… Her Nielsen was pure virtuosity (oh, the cadenzas!)… Suwanai has reached the top level of artistry and here in Asturias we have been lucky enough to witness her ascent during these past six years.”

(Diana Diaz, La Nueva Espana, April 2015

“The orchestra seemed to wrap itself around soloist Akiko Suwanai, a wonderful player who seemed rather more wonderful with the Philadelphians framing her.”

(David Patrick Stearns, Philly.com, May 2014)