Vedrana Subotic

Over the course of her vibrant and multi-faceted musical career, pianist Vedrana Subotic has distinguished herself as an internationally acclaimed concert artist, pedagogue, chamber musician, concert producer, and administrator. Her 2018 schedule numbers 60 professional engagements in North and South Americas, Europe, and Asia. Subotic's concert repertoire features more than 500 works in the solo, chamber, and concerto genres, including the 32 piano sonatas, complete violin, cello, and French horn sonatas, and the complete piano trios (60 works all together) by Beethoven.

Subotic, a Steinway Artist since 2003, is an award-winning Associate Professor-Lecturer of Music at the University of Utah, and a Visiting Professor of Piano at the University of Chile. She serves as the newly appointed President of the World Piano Teachers Association USA, Executive Director of the USA Chapter Conference, and as the Music Director (2002-present) of INTERMEZZO, a highly esteemed concert series based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Subotic is also the founding member of the Intermezzo Piano Trio.

An active soloist and chamber musician, Subotic has been lauded by critics and audiences for her “fierce playing,” and “impressive chops” (Salt Lake Tribune), and her “nuanced and expressive playing, beautifully phrased lines, and a wonderfully light touch.” (Deseret News). The recent review in Artists of Utah described her performance of Schubert piano trio (E-flat) as “one of the most intuitively verdant and emotionally draining performance of any of Franz Schubert’s compositions that I have ever heard, live or on a recording...truly astonishing.”

Subotic’s musical career began precociously at age nine, when her performance of Debussy’s "Childrens' Corner" aired on national television in her native country, the former Yugoslavia, as part of the series on emerging musical prodigies. Her training at the National Music Conservatory "Josip Slavenski” was consequently intensified and accelerated. At age fifteen, she was admitted to the University of Belgrade Music Academy (FMU) as the youngest candidate ever accepted. After winning the first prize in Yugoslavia's National Piano Competition at age nineteen, she moved to the United States, to study with Ralph Votapek, the Gold Medalist of the first Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, and later with Menahem Pressler, the founding member of the Beaux Arts Trio.

Subotic performs in at least thirty concerts a year in the Americas, Asia, and Europe, combining concerto appearances, solo recitals, chamber music collaborations, and orchestral performances. Recent concerts include performances of concertos by Brahms (No.2), Beethoven (No.4 and No.5), Chopin (No.1 and No.2), Prokofiev (No.3), and Berg (Chamber Concerto); concert tours in Russia, China, Chile, Israel, the Czech Republic, Serbia, Croatia, and Puerto Rico. Subotic has performed in such distinguished venues as Bolshoi Theater's Beethoven Hall in Moscow (Russia), Elena Obrazova Hall in St. Petersburg (Russia), Martinu Hall in Prague (Czech Republic), Kolarac Hall in Belgrade (Serbia), Woolsey Hall and Morse Recital Hall in New Haven, CT (USA), Chicago Symphony Hall (USA), Steinway Hall and Paul Recital Hall in NYC (USA), Chautauqua Amphitheater in NY (USA), Abravanel Hall and the Tabernacle in Salt Lake City (USA), Targ Hall in Tel Aviv (Israel), Doge's Palace in Dubrovnik (Croatia), and the Purcell Room in London's Southbank Center for the Performing Arts (UK). Subotic has played chamber music with distinguished musicians such as Joseph Silverstein, and members of the Muir Quartet. As a soloist and orchestra member, Subotic has worked with conductors Pavel Kogan, Joseph Silverstein, Matthias Bamert, Hugh Wolff, Jan Merkel, Thierry Fischer, Keith Lockhart, and Jean-Claude Casadesus, among others.

At the University of Utah, Dr. Subotic teaches piano students in the Bachelor, Masters, and Doctoral programs and oversees degree recitals, Masters Thesis, and Doctoral Dissertations. She has taught courses in undergraduate and graduate piano literature, piano pedagogy, accompanying, and chamber music. At the University of Chile, Dr. Subotic teaches students in the Conservatory, undergraduate and graduate piano program, and oversees degree recitals and Masters Thesis.

Since 2009, Dr. Subotic has been teaching a highly successful course in professional Career Development, for which she received the Faculty Recognition Award from the University of Utah. She has received fourteen grants from the University Teaching Committee, the Dee Council, and the Fine Arts and Fees committee since her faculty appointment in 2008. Dr. Subotic created the Guest Artist Piano Masterclasses Series for piano performance majors, in collaboration with the Utah Symphony and the Gina Bachauer Foundation. She is the Director of the Teacher Development Seminars (2015- present), a collaboration with the Preparatory Piano program, and chief producer of the live-streaming faculty concert series Live@Libby.

Dr. Subotic has distinguished herself as a teacher who mentors award-winning performers and scholars. Her University of Utah college students have won numerous competitions, performed as soloists and chamber musicians in Carnegie Hall, and have been accepted and awarded scholarships to prestigious international piano programs at the Mozarteum Academy in Salzburg, the Royal College of Music in London, the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, Yale University, Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, the University of Michigan, Piano Texas International Academy and Festival (in collaboration with the Van Cliburn Competition), and the Interharmony International Music Festival. Her DMA students have produced dissertations on subjects ranging from cataloguing piano works by Manuel Ponce and works dedicated to exploration of extended piano techniques for pedagogical purposes, to the influence of religious and folk music of former Yugoslavia on the emergence of its pianistic style.

In 2014, Subotic began the unparalleled project of performing the complete solo sonatas, duo sonatas, and piano trios by Beethoven - 60 works total. She has since presented the Beethoven programs, lectures, and masterclasses in national and international venues, at the Sichuan Conservatory (China), Tel Aviv University (Israel), the Jerusalem Academy of Music (Israel), Unbound Chamber Music Festival (CA, USA), the InterHarmony International Music Festival (Italy), World Piano Conference (Serbia), the Mistral Concert Series in Santiago (Chile), University of Santiago (Chile), the Prague Academy of Music (Czech Republic), the Midsummer Piano Festival in Prague, (Czech Republic), the Turgenev Memorial Library in Moscow (Russia), and at Ohio State University (USA). Upcoming engagements in 2018 include concerts and masterclasses in the US, Canada, Russia, China, Italy, Brazil, Chile, and France.

In 2014, Subotic began the unparalleled project of performing the complete solo sonatas, duo sonatas, and piano trios by Beethoven - 60 works total. She has since presented the Beethoven programs, lectures, and masterclasses in national and international venues, at the Sichuan Conservatory (China), Tel Aviv University (Israel), the Jerusalem Academy of Music (Israel), Unbound Chamber Music Festival (CA, USA), the InterHarmony International Music Festival (Italy), World Piano Conference (Serbia), the Mistral Concert Series in Santiago (Chile), University of Santiago (Chile), the Prague Academy of Music (Czech Republic), the Midsummer Piano Festival in Prague, (Czech Republic), the Turgenev Memorial Library in Moscow (Russia), and at Ohio State University (USA). Upcoming engagements in 2018 include concerts and masterclasses in the US, Canada, Russia, China, Italy, Brazil, Chile, and France.

Dr. Subotic’s musical career began at age nine, when her performance of Debussy’s piano works for children aired on national television in her native country, the former Yugoslavia. Upon winning the top prize in Yugoslavia's National Piano Competition, she moved to the United States. Dr. Subotic has since been active as a soloist and a chamber musician in the Americas and Europe, where she performs in dozens of concerts a year, combining concerto appearances, solo recitals, chamber music collaborations, and orchestral performances.

In 2014, Dr. Subotic began the massive project of performing the complete solo sonatas, duo sonatas, and piano trios by Beethoven - 57 works in all. Her Beethoven performances have aired regularly on the local and national broadcasts of BYU's classical music program, Highway 89. The 2016 engagements include two performances of Beethoven’s fifth piano concerto with the Alpine Symphony, four new Beethoven programs, and international performances and masterclasses in Prague, Chile, Italy, Croatia, and Serbia. Dr. Subotic’s other recent performances include several solo appearances with the Utah Symphony, and with the Utah Chamber Artists orchestra, playing both Chopin piano concertos back-to-back; concert tours in Puerto Rico, the Utah premier of Alban Berg’s Chamber Concerto; appearing as a soloist in Beethoven’s fifth piano concerto with the Dubrovnik Symphony, and Prokofiev’s third piano concerto at the Chautauqua Festival in New York, as well as chamber music concerts at the International Chamber Music Festival in Nis, Serbia, the Dubrovnik Summer Festival, the Chautauqua Festival, the American Festival for the Arts in Houston, and Intermezzo, Nova, Chamber Music Society, Westminster Concert Series, Sundays@7, and Temple Square Concert Series in Salt Lake City, Utah. Dr. Subotic has collaborated in recital with such artists as Joseph Silverstein, Paul Neubauer, Robert DeMaine, and the Muir Quartet. Her artistry and extensive concert activity attracted the attention of the Director of the Worldwide Concert and Artists division at the Steinway Corporation ) in NY. In 2003, she was invited to join the distinguished roster of Steinway Artists.

Dr. Subotic graduated from the former Yugoslavia’s State Music Conservatory at age fifteen, and received a Bachelor of Music degree from Belgrade University four years later. She has since earned a Master of Music from Michigan State University, and an Artist Diploma and Doctor of Music from Indiana University. Her Doctoral thesis explored the cultural and compositional connections between Claude Debussy’s and Toru Takemitsu's piano works. Her teachers have included Menahem Pressler, Evelyne Brancart, Arbo Valdma, Leonard Hokanson, Peter Frankl, Ralph Votapek, Gyorgy Sebok, Byron Janis, Janos Starker, and Josef Gingold.