DANIËL OTTEN (1938 – 2024) was a Dutch concert violinist, who studied under Gijs Beths and Oskar Back at the Amsterdam College of Music. He performed with radio and symphony orchestras in violin concertos by Leclair, Tartini, Vivaldi, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelsohn, Bruch, Glazunov, Saint-Saëns, Tchaikovsky, Ravel and Khachaturian. He went on concert tours in Belgium, England, France, Germany, Norway, Italy, Romania, Indonesia and the West Indies. He partook in countless radio recordings, gave several television performances and made an LP and a CD. Daniel taught at the music colleges of Hilversum, Tilburg and Amsterdam. He was concertmaster with various orchestras.
He has written a workbook to improve one’s violin technique: Get more out of your violin playing. He also wrote two non-fiction books about his childhood during the Second World War: ANNIE, een Joodse weduwe en haar zoon in de greep van bezetting en vervolging and Annie & Jacques.

Violinist Jascha Heifetz would have said: “1947: first violin lessons, 1956: College of Music, 1961: debut in Leiden, The Netherlands. That’s it …”