Pianist​

Pianist Tyler Wottrich has distinguished himself as a chamber musician, vocal pianist, solo performer, and teacher. Wottrich is an Associate Professor at North Dakota State University’s Challey School of Music, where he created a graduate collaborative piano program and serves as artistic director of the NDSU Chamber Music Festival. The Chamber Festival, which Wottrich founded in 2015, recently celebrated its eighth season pairing NDSU student pianists with world-class professional musicians from across the globe.

 

Wottrich is the recipient of the Emerson String Quartet’s Ackerman Prize for chamber music and served on the collaborative piano faculty of the Banff Centre. An alumnus of Ensemble Connect (formerly Ensemble ACJW), ensemble-in-residence at Carnegie Hall and the Juilliard School, Wottrich has performed with such artists as Colin Carr, Philippe Grafin, Carol Wincenc, Frank Morelli, William VerMeulen, and Andres Diaz. The video of a cartoon theme mash-up Wottrich composed for Ensemble Connect has surpassed 2 million views on YouTube. Wottrich is committed to the performance of new music and has worked with such composers as John Luther Adams, John Corigliano, Georg Friedrich Haas, Jocelyn Hagen, Richard Hundley, David Lang, Libby Larsen, Missy Mazzoli, Dominick Argento, and Bright Sheng.

 

Wottrich accompanied mezzo-soprano Clara Osowski in winning 2nd Prize at the 2017 Das Lied International Song Competition as well as 4th Prize, Richard Tauber Prize for the best interpretation of Schubert Lieder, and the Vaughan Williams Prize for the best interpretation of a British Song at the 2017 and 2019 Wigmore Hall International Song Competitions. After garnering an honorable mention in the Marilyn Horne Song Competition, Wottrich performed at Marilyn Horne's "The Song Continues" at Carnegie Hall. Wottrich has been a vocal pianist at Stony Brook University, North Dakota State University, Opera North, Music Academy of the West, and the Fargo-Moorhead Opera Company, and has performed with members of the Grammy Award-winning African-American Choral Group "Sounds of Blackness."

 

Appearances of note include a performance at the Source Song Festival of Argento’s “The Andrée Expedition” staged by renowned baritone Håkan Hakegård, for whom the cycle was written, as well as solo and chamber music recitals at Carnegie’s Zankel and Weill halls, Dartmouth College, the Banff Centre, and the Dame Myra Hess Series at the Chicago Cultural Center. Wottrich has held educational performance residencies at the PianoArts Piano Competition and Festival in Milwaukee, and in June 2015 was head of the jury for their Wisconsin Youth Competition.

Wottrich began his piano studies with Gail Olszewski before studying with Lydia Artymiw at the University of Minnesota, from which he graduated summa cum laude with degrees in both music and mathematics. He completed his M.M. and D.M.A. as a Staller Fellow at Stony Brook University where he studied with Gilbert Kalish.