Thomas Kotcheff

Kotcheff was born in Wilmington, North Carolina and raised in Los Angeles, California. His parents are Laifun Chung and director Ted Kotcheff, and he has an older sister, Alexandra. He began taking piano lessons at the age of 4 and in 2006 he graduated from Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. In 2010, Kotcheff completed a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University and then attended USC Thornton School of Music from 2010 to 2019 where he received a Masters of Master of Music and a Doctor of Music in Music Composition. He studied composition with Stephen Hartke, Donald Crockett, Frank Ticheli, and Steven Stucky, and piano with Benjamin Pasternack and Stewart L. Gordon.

Kotcheff serves as Ear Training and Music Theory Faculty at the Colburn School[3] He is a teaching artist at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Composer Fellowship Program.[4] Kotcheff has held residencies at Festival International d'Art Lyrique d'Aix-en-Provence,[5] the Los Angeles Philharmonic's National Composers Intensive,[6] The Hermitage Artist Retreat,[7] The Studios of Key West,[8] and The Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts.[9]

As a new music pianist, Thomas has dedicated himself to commissioning and premiering new piano works.[10] In 2020, his performance of Frederic Rzewski's Songs of Insurrection was awarded Best Instrumental Recital Performance in Los Angeles by San Francisco Classical Voice's Audience Choice Awards.[11] He released the world premiere recording of "Songs of Insurrection" on the Coviello Contemporary label.[12]

Kotcheff is a founding member of the new music piano duo HOCKET with Sarah Gibson.[13] He serves as a content contributor to 91.5 KUSC[14] and is a livestream broadcast host for the Ojai Music Festival.[15]

• 2021 Illinois State University College of Fine Arts RED NOTE New Music Festival Composition Competition[16]
• 2018 New York Youth Symphony First Music Commission[17]
• 2016 Charles Ives Prize (Charles Ives Scholarship) American Academy of Arts and Letters[1]
• 2015 Presser Foundation Graduate Music Award
• 2015 BMI Foundation Student Composer Award[18]
• 2014 Aspen Music Festival Hermitage Prize[19]

• Frederic Rzewski: Songs of Insurrection (2020) Coviello Contemporary COV 92021

Kotcheff provided the score to the 2019 independent film The Planters.[20] Together with composer Ludwig Göransson, he co-wrote the tracks "Trinity" and "Something More Important" on the soundtrack of the 2023 film Oppenheimer by Christopher Nolan. Together with composer Kris Bowers, he co-wrote the tracks "William Gracey", "It's Happy Hour Somewhere", and "Ghost Chase" on the soundtrack of the 2023 film Haunted Mansion by Justin Simien.

• Official website