Akiko Suwanai is a Japanese classical violinist. She was the youngest winner of the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1990. In addition, she won second place in the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in 1989 and is a laureate of the International Japan Competition.

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. She currently plays the 1714 Dolphin Stradivarius, which is on loan from the Nippon Music Foundation.

(Photo: Kiyotaka Saito)