Biography

Over the course of her vibrant and multi-faceted musical career,
pianist Vedrana Subotic has distinguished herself as an internation-
ally acclaimed concert artist, pedagogue, chamber musician, concert
producer, and administrator. Her 2018 schedule numbers 60 profes-
sional 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, com-
plete 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 As-
sociate 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 As-
sociation 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 perform-
ance of Schubert piano trio (E-flat) as “one of the most intuitive-
ly verdant and emotionally draining performance of any of Franz
Schubert’s compositions that I have ever heard, live or on a record-
ing... 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 MenahemPressler,
the founding member of the Beaux Arts Trio.
Subotic performs in at least thirty concerts a year in the Amer-
icas, Asia, and Europe, combining concerto appearances, solo re-
citals, 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), Prokof-
iev (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 Repub-
lic), Kolarac Hall in Belgrade (Serbia), Woolsey Hall and Morse Re-
cital 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 peda-
gogy, 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 fac-
ulty 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 produ-
cer 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 ac-
cepted and awarded scholarships to prestigious international piano
programs at the Mozarteum Academy in Salzburg, the Royal Col-
lege of Music in London, the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana Uni-
versity, 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 influ-
ence of religious and folk music of former Yugoslavia on the emer-
gence 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 master classes 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 Acad-
emy 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 engage-
ments in 2018 include concerts and masterclasses in the US, Canada,
Russia, China, Italy, Brazil, Chile, and France.
Dr. Subotic received a Bachelor of Music degree from Belgrade Uni-
versity at age nineteen. As a full-scholarship student, she has earned a
Master of Music from Michigan State University, and an Artist Dip-
loma and Doctor of Music from Indiana University. Her Doctoral
dissertation explores the cultural and compositional connections be-
tween Claude Debussy’s and Toru Takemitsu's piano works.
Her teachers were pianists Menahem Pressler, Ralph Votapek,
Evelyne Brancart, Arbo Valdma, Leonard Hokanson, Peter Frankl,
Gyorgy Sebok, and Byron Janis, and distinguished professors, cellist
Janos Starker and violinist Josef Gingold.

Selected by Marija Anđić
Edited by Nikol Marković