John’s 2025 release, INVICTUS, contains orchestrated, piano-driven, contemporary songs that bring the power of a full orchestra to thematic, soundtrack quality compositions.
Produced by Grammy Award winning guitarist and Windham Hill Records founder Will Ackerman, UNSPOKEN is my 2019 release. Working with several Grammy and multi-Grammy award winning artists, UNSPOKEN brings together emotionally-charged piano compositions with world class musicians and a production team with impressive credits of gold and platinum albums. My piano playing is accompanied by violin, cello, guitar, percussion, flugelhorn and some bass guitar.
UNSPOKEN features many incredible musicians that I was honored to collaborate with:
I released COLORS in 2014. The songs on this album are what I like to call “emotionally orchestrated.” Strange term, I know. Although the songs are piano driven (except for “Soaring”), they are interwoven with string and keyboard arrangements that bring on a whole new level of musical dimension. And this is how I love to compose! This album was a 58th Annual Grammy Consideration – Best New Age Album!
There are a few songs that have very special meaning to me. From the CD liner notes:
The Wind Song – My 14 year old daughter (Isabella) plays many of the violin tracks on this song (she was 13 when I recorded her). This was the first time we have worked together on a song and I wrote some of the violin parts specifically for her to play. I am very proud of her and she is really excited to be on a CD and to have people hear her!!
A Memory – My mother had Alzheimer’s. This piece was not written with any thought towards song form or function. It is a direct conduit to the emotions I have felt during the 6+ years I helplessly watched my mother deteriorate from the effects of this terrible disease. With this song, I attempt to convey the myriad of emotions I have experienced – sadness, incomprehension, hopefulness during brief periods when my mother seemed to “re-emerge,” anger and helplessness when she would then deteriorate to a new low. This piece is undoubtedly the purest metamorphosis of emotion into music that I have ever composed.
August and Life – I wrote this song in celebration of the birth of my daughter, Isabella (born 8/15/2000). I dug it out of my song archives and included it on this CD. It is a very special song to me.
I’m really happy with how this CD came out…with only one regret. I should have had my son play the drums on “Tesoro” and the percussion on “Santa Cruz” instead of me. He was eleven when I recorded COLORS and quite good…then both of my children could have been a part of this musical journey!
FLYING MACHINES is my first (and only) solo piano release (2011). I wanted to produce a CD that really went to the core of my musical innards, so to speak. Solo piano music. Nominated for Solo Piano album of the year by solopiano.com. There’s a bit of very light texturing on some of the tracks, but nothing that detracts from the essence of my compositions. I’m very happy with the result. This release, more than my previous two, provides for a pure and clean connection between my musical emotionalism and a listener’s ear. Emotionalism? Maybe I just invented a word. Works for me, though.
“One Life, One Love.” This song – track 8 on my first release entitled EXIT REALITY – started it all for me. It is a piano quintet (piano + string quartet) that I composed as a wedding gift for my wife. My plan was to take a surprise detour to the grand piano in the church just prior to the vow part. My wife had no idea (nor did anyone else, for that matter).
I had hired a string quartet to play the standard string quartet wedding stuff, which they did quite beautifully, I might add. However, when I detoured to the piano, they then took out sheet music that I painstakingly (with some help) created so they could all play the string parts that I composed to accompany the piano composition I wrote for my almost-wife.
So, my wedding ceremony was my first public performance on piano – with a string quartet, no less. My nerves were shot – double shot (wedding plus performance…what was I thinking?). I had a great time, my almost-wife loved it and we were able to drop the “almost” a few minutes afterwards. Whew (literally).
Things started moving fast after this (with my music, I mean). Turns out the string quartet I hired was through a company that was run by Julie Metz – when she wasn’t touring with Yanni or the Pacific Symphony Orchestra. She encouraged me to orchestrate (with strings) many of the solo piano compositions I had written over the previous few years. After several recording sessions with Julie on violin/viola and Andrew Honea (Pacific Symphony Orchestra) on cello, EXIT REALITY was born.
I set off to promote my debut CD and successfully introduced it to Borders Books and Music where it was carried in nearly every store nationwide (many other boutique stores also carried it). From there I signed a publishing deal with Peer Music before EXIT REALITY was released commercially in Taiwan by High Hit Music. Funny thing, they spelled my name “Jhon” on the cover. Probably a typo, but I like to tell myself that this is how “John” is spelled in Chinese. Makes me feel a little better.
© 2025 John Otott
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