Akiko Suwanai

This past weekend the Lovely Mina and I drove back to Cleveland to see my favorite living violinist, Ms. Akiko Suwanai, play a recital. We had seen her twice before, both times in Tokyo and both times from seats very far away from the action, so we were (or at least I was) looking forward to this small venue recital.

Previously we had seen her play Bruch's 1st Violin Concerto at Tokyo Opera City, which is a simply stunning venue, and the Beethoven Violin Concerto at Tokyo's International Forum, which is honestly not the greatest place to see a concert. Both concerts were fantastic, however. The Beethoven was particularly well played, in my opinion, and she had built up so much tension in the crowd by the end of the 1st movement that there was an audible release of breath from the audience when it ended. I had never experienced anything quite like that at a concert before.

In any event, the recital we saw last weekend was at the Pilgrim Congregational Church in Cleveland, a venue that seats only 1,200. We had very nice seats on the balcony and were able to see quite well. The first and last tunes, a Bach and then a Brahms Sonata, were excellent, though the choice of Bartok in the middle was less than inspired from my point of view (worse, from my Dad's, probably).

It was a very nice concert at an interesting venue, though, and I am glad we were fortunate enough to be able to see Akiko Suwanai play again. For those interested, here are a couple of links.

Akiko Suwanai's CD of the Bruch Violin Concerto 1 and Scottish Fantasy at Amazon.com
Akiko Suwanai's Home Page (Japanese)
Akiko Suwanai at Wikipedia (English)