Vedrana Subotic
Yugoslav-American pianist Vedrana Subotic is an internationally acclaimed concert artist, pedagogue, and chamber musician. Lauded by critics and audiences as a soloist for “fierce playing and impressive chops” (Salt Lake Tribune), “nuanced and expressive playing” characterized by “beautifully phrased lines, and a wonderfully light touch.” (Deseret News), Subotic has also earned accolades as a chamber musician. Artists of Utah described her recent performance of Schubert’s piano trio No.2 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 is a Steinway Artist and maintains a busy concert and masterclass schedule with over 60 engagements in North and South America, Europe, and Asia every year. She has performed more than 500 works in the solo, chamber, and concerto genres, including the 32 piano sonatas, and complete chamber works with piano by Beethoven. Her live-streamed concerts have received over 2 million online views since June of 2020.
Subotic is an award-winning 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, as the Music Director (2002-present) of INTERMEZZO Concert Series based in Salt Lake City, Utah, and as the state president for the Utah chapter of ALS (American Liszt Society).
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 dozens of 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 Rachmaninoff (Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini), 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, Brazil, Israel, France, UK, Czech Republic, Serbia, Croatia, Italy, Canada, 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 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, she 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.
Dr. Subotic received a Bachelor of Music degree from Belgrade University at age nineteen. As a full-scholarship student, she earned a Master of Music from Michigan State University, and an Artist Diploma and Doctor of Music from Indiana University. Her Doctoral dissertation explores the cultural and compositional connections between 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.