Otto Stuparitz's research explores the traditional and popular musics of Indonesia, examining how musical communities grapple with the overlapping meanings of local musics circulating globally and global musics made local. His work includes research on recording studio aesthetics and Balinese gamelan gong kebyar pedagogies related to time, economics, and value. His current book project, Java Jazz: A Politics of Preservation, investigates the history and contemporary practice of Indonesian jazz, by analyzing the socio-political contexts of grassroots archives affecting the historiography of Indonesian jazz and datafication practices in the Indonesian music industry. His research and scholarship focus on various topics related to popular music, capitalism, globalization, technology, anthropology, and world jazz.

He has presented his work around the world and won the Honorable Mention for the Society of Economic Anthropology Harold K. Schneider Student Paper Prize in 2021. He has written chapters for books like Regional and Rural Perspectives on Popular Music Scenes, Balungan, and The Routledge Companion to Diasporic Jazz Studies. He served as the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Ethnomusicology Review and restored the UCLA Javanese gamelan Khjai Mendung (The Venerable Dark Cloud) with Pak Djoko Walujo Wimboprasetyo.
Otto is also a performer with gamelan ensembles in the Southern California area and has worked as a bassist, composer, and arranger with West Javanese jazz group Bluesukan.