Serbian-Croatian-American pianist Vedrana Subotic leads a vibrant and multi-faceted career as an internationally acclaimed concert artist, pedagogue, and chamber musician. Subotic’s solo performances have been lauded by critics and audiences for “fierce playing and impressive chops” (Salt Lake Tribune) and “nuanced and expressive playing, beautifully phrased lines, and a wonderfully light touch.” (Deseret News). Artists of Utah described her recent performance of Schubert PianoTrio No.2 as “one of the most intuitively verdant and emotionally draining performance of any of Franz Schubert’s compositions…ever heard, live or on a recording…truly astonishing.”
Subotic, a Steinway Artist, studied music in Europe and the US, and holds five degrees. She maintains a busy concert and masterclass schedule with engagements in North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Subotic 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 recentlive-streamed performance of Liszt’s “Dante” Sonata drew over 500K views.
Based in Salt Lake City, Utah, Subotic 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 President of the World Piano Teachers Association for the US, as the Music Director of INTERMEZZO Concert Series, and as the state President for the Utah Chapter of the 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 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, 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.
Since 2009, 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 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.
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 presented their dissertations on subjects ranging from unpublished 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, at national and international pedagogy and performance conferences and trade publications.
In 2014, Subotic began the 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). Engagements in 2018 and 2019 include concerts and masterclasses in the US, Canada, Russia, China, Serbia, Brazil, Chile, and France. In 2020, Dr. Subotic will teach and perform in Canada, China, Germany, France, Chile, and the UK.
Dr. Subotic received a Bachelor of Music degree from Belgrade University at age nineteen. As a full-scholarship student, she has 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.
