Christopher Otto

A founding member of the JACK Quartet, violinist Christopher Otto specializes in contemporary music and has a growing catalog of compositions. He is also on the faculty of the Mannes School of Music, where the JACK Quartet has served as quartet-in-residence. Otto was born on November 11, 1983, in Champaign, Illinois. His education was varied, including a mathematics major at the University of Rochester, violin studies with Cyrus Forough and Timothy Ying, and composition studies at Rochester's Eastman School of Music with Robert Morris, David Liptak, Martin Bresnick, and James Willey. From the beginning of his career, Otto was interested in the possibilities of music for instruments tuned in just intonation -- to intervals produced by whole number ratios -- and, as early as 2004, explored these possibilities as both composer and performer. He continued to do so as a member of the JACK Quartet, which he co-founded in 2005. With that group, he has performed frequently and made various recordings, often devoted to new works by the likes of Philip Glass, John Zorn (with whom he has often been associated), Chaya Czernowin, and Catherine Lamb, but also to those by established figures in contemporary music, including Iannis Xenakis, John Luther Adams, Amy Williams, and Cenk Ergün. Otto has also performed with other groups, including Ensemble Signal, The Cellar and Point, the International Contemporary Ensemble, and The Knights. With his wife, Emily DuFour, he founded the group Hutchins East, which performs on a set of eight proportionally sized stringed instruments created by researcher Carleen Hutchins. Otto also held a residency at the University of Washington, where he composed works for an ensemble of new instruments originally designed by Harry Partch. Otto has composed a violin octet, which he recorded with himself playing all eight parts, and a violin duo, which was recorded by violinist Erik Carlson. Otto's rag′sma, for two or three string quartets, was recorded by the JACK Quartet and released on the Greyfade label in 2021. The following year, Otto was heard with the JACK Quartet on the album John Luther Adams: Sila -- The Breath of the World.
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