Dr. Vedrana Subotic 

Croatian-American pianist Vedrana Subotic has been lauded for creating performances of “shimmering beauty and thundering power.” Her recording of the Liszt B minor Sonata from the 2024 album “Chiaroscuro” debuted to critical acclaim, earning praise from Textura, Earrelevant, and the American Record Guide. Music Web International described it as “a powerhouse performance that really grips the listener from the first moment and doesn’t let go until the gradually descending notes, which create yet more drama, ending the sonata and leaving the listener with a feeling of awe.”

 

Ms. Subotic, a Steinway Artist, performs in dozens of concerts a year combining concerto appearances, solo recitals, chamber music collaborations, and orchestral performances in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. She has performed more than five hundred works in the solo, chamber, and concerto genres. Recent engagements include Rachmaninoff Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini, Brahms Concerto No.2, Beethoven Concertos No.4 and No.5, Chopin Concertos No.1 and No.2, Prokofiev Concerto No.3, and Berg Chamber Concerto; and recitals in Russia, China, Chile, Brazil, Israel, France, UK, Czech Republic, Serbia, Croatia, Italy, Canada, and Puerto Rico. Ms. Subotic has performed in distinguished venues - the Bolshoi Theathr's Beethoven Hall in Moscow (Russia), Elena Obrazova Hall in St. Petersburg (Russia), Martinu Hall in Prague (Czech Republic), Kolarčev Hall in Belgrade (Serbia), 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). 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.

 

In 2014, Ms.Subotic began performing the complete solo sonatas, accompanied sonatas, and piano trios by Beethoven - over sixty works all together. She has since presented the Beethoven programs throughout the US and international venues - the Sichuan Conservatory (China), Tel Aviv University (Israel), the Jerusalem Academy of Music (Israel), the InterHarmony International Music Festival (Italy), World Piano Conference (Serbia), University of Santiago (Chile), the Prague Academy of Music (Czech Republic), the Turgenev Library and the Beethoven Hall in Moscow (Russia), among others.

 

Ms. 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 ever heard, live or on a recording…truly astonishing.”

 

An award-winning Professor-Lecturer of Music at the University of Utah, and a Visiting Professor of Piano at the University of Chile, Ms. Subotic also serves as President of the World Piano Teachers Association USA, Artistic Director of Intermezzo Chamber Music Concert Series in Salt Lake City, Utah, and as the President for the Utah chapter of  the American Liszt Society. At the University of Utah, Ms. Subotic teaches piano students in the Bachelor, Masters, and Doctoral programs and oversees degree recitals, Masters Thesis, and Doctoral DissertationEssays. Over the course of her academic career she has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in piano literature, piano pedagogy, accompanying, and chamber music. Ms.Subotic currently teaches two courses in professional Career Development for which she received the Faculty Recognition Award from the University of Utah in 2019. She spearheaded a number of piano projects as a faculty member. From 2009-2021, Ms. Subotic directed Guest Artist Piano Masterclasses Series in collaboration with the Utah Symphony and the Gina Bachauer Foundation. In 2021 she established the Utah Liszt Festival and Piano Competition in collaboration with the American Liszt Society. The following year she created the Bach Festival and Competition.

 

Ms. Subotic has won numerous grants for research and pedagogy projects at the University of Utah - study and performance of the complete Well-Tempered Clavier by Bach, the 32 Beethoven piano sonatas, Chopin Etudes Op.10 and Op.25, Debussy 24 Preludes, and Prokofiev 10 piano sonatas. She has distinguished herself as a teacher who mentors award-winning performers and scholars. Ms. Subotic’s University of Utah college students have won numerous competitions, have performed as soloists and chamber musicians in prestigious venues from Abravanel Hall to the Carnegie Hall, and have been accepted and awarded scholarships to prestigious international piano programs - 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, and Piano Texas International Academy and Festival (in collaboration with the Van Cliburn Competition). Her doctoral 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 the national pianistic style, at national and international pedagogy and performance conferences and in trade publications.

 

Ms. 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 music prodigies. Her training at the 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 accepted to date. After winning the first prize in the National Piano Competition at age nineteen, Ms. Subotic moved to the United States, to study with Ralph Votapek, a Van Cliburn Competition gold medalist, and later with Menahem Pressler, the founding member of the Beaux Arts Trio.

 

Ms. 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.