Hailed for his “sublimely crafted expressiveness” (Deseret News), Bradley Ottesen has created a diversely vibrant career since his beginnings at the world-renowned Preucil School of Music in Iowa City, Iowa.
Bradley served four seasons as assistant principal violist with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra in Alberta, Canada, during which the complete Beethoven symphonies were performed as part of a 10-day celebration. He has appeared frequently with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, New World Symphony, and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, performing under the batons of Pierre Boulez, Seiji Ozawa, Mstislav Rostropovich, and with Daniel Barenboim, notably in the PBS special “The Music Makers” and independent film “The Phenomenon of Sound.”
Active in the contemporary music world, Bradley has premiered pieces by John Adams, Joan Tower, and Bright Sheng and forged relationships through unusual pairings in a cabaret show with One Yellow Rabbit Theatre that partnered politically and socially charged Kurt Weill songs with classical selections from Jewish composers who perished in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Bradley was also a part of the new music festival “Hear and Now” featuring living Canadian composers, as well as making frequent appearances in Calgary’s “Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth” — the Calgary Stampede.
Bradley currently teaches on the string and chamber music faculty of the Caine College of the Arts at Utah State University. He holds a master’s degree from the New England Conservatory and a bachelor’s from Northwestern University. His principal teachers included James Dunham, Peter Slowik, Eric Rosenblith, and members of the Juilliard, Muir, and Cleveland string quartets.
Bradley performs on a Moes and Moes viola he commissioned in 2003 and a Pierre-Yves Fuchs bow made in 2005. Bradley resides in Logan, Utah, with his wife Denise, an audio-visual system design consultant, and their animal shelter-adopted menagerie: three cats and a dog. Bradley loves collecting LPs and watching the Discovery Channel during long flights.
