Hans! My prodigal son! - Joe Diorio
Keep on playing Hans. You have good reason to. You've got it. - Ted Greene
Hans has played and studied music since birth. His mother, Linda Ottsen, soprano, sang with Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland with Hans in the womb. In his mid-teens, he began playing guitar and pursued his formal education as a studio guitar major at the University of Southern California, continuing his studies at the Manhattan School of Music, focusing on jazz guitar, improvisation, and music theory.
Performance venues include The Thousand Oaks Center for the Arts, The Knitting Factory (NYC), The Mint in Los Angeles, and Common Grounds in Hollywood. In the Ventura County area, he has performed at Nicholby's, Zoey's, J's, Bernadette's, The Sidecar, Franky's, The Drink, The Deer Lodge, Herzog Wine Cellars, 95.9 the Octopus, and Howard Freiberg's Ojai Jam-Band Festivals. In addition to his solo guitar work, Hans' newest projects include The Harlem Holler Trio, a drummerless trio project with Phil Salazar (fiddle) and Randy Tico (bass), The WORP Trio with Jim Rankin (bass) and Aaron Winters (drums), The Ventura Jazz Orchestra (an 19 piece big band), The Ashley Broder/Hans Ottsen duo with Ashley Broder (violin/mandolin/cello), and several other small emsemble projects, all available for bookings.
Hans has been teaching guitar and piano privately since 1992. He has taught in Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco, as well as in Ventura County. He is the guitar/piano teacher for the Golden Valley Charter School and co-owns and operates Ottsen Music Studios with his mother, Linda Ottsen. He also works at the Steven Perren Youth Correctional Facility in Oxnard, California, teaching guitar to at-risk young people. His teaching experience is pan-stylistic. Honing in on individual student passions, he helps people find their way to greater facility, and thus greater ability, regardless of their area of interest. Hans believes that any music which inspires passion in the heart of an individual can be utilized as a valid passageway to musical development, theoretical understanding, and personal growth. Hans' specialty is jazz improvisation, music theory, and composition, however, his students have included blues, rock, classical, Celtic, bluegrass, and old time musicians. As Hans believes that music has little to do with genre and much to do with musical approach/musical understanding/musical sensitivity, his teaching style has become known as one which transcends genre. Although Hans' main instrument is guitar, he has taught theory, improvisation, and composition to players of other instruments including saxophonists, pianist, violinists, bassists, trumpeters, vocalists, and others. "Every instrument has it's blessings as well as it's limitations: 88 simultaneous notes available to a pianist, 1 to a vocalist. Does this mean that piano is 88 times more valid than a beautiful voice? Or 88 times easier to master? I think not. True music does not play favorites. Ultimately, our imagination decides what is possible, regardless of which axe we choose to sling. And imagination is limitless. If one's music comes from the heart, the well will never run dry. 1 honest note will always mean more to me than 1000 notes born of vanity and insecurity." - Hans Ottsen