Alice Sara Ott

Alice Sara Ott (b. Munich, August 1, 1988), champion of piano first prizes, studied at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, before embarking on a tour of Europe's major festivals. Signed exclusively by Deutsche Grammophon, she recorded Franz Liszt's 12 Études d'exécution transcendante (released in 2009) and performed to sold-out audiences in Japan. Solo or with renowned conductors such as David Zinman or Thomas Hengelbrock, the Japanese-born German pianist triumphs wherever she goes in a mainly Romantic repertoire including Frédéric Chopin(Complete Waltzes), Ludwig van Beethoven, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Maurice Ravel. In 2013, the young prodigy published Pictures, a piano transcription of Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky. A year later, she followed this up with the four-hand recital Scandale, based on Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, with her Luxembourg counterpart Francesco Tristano. She then collaborated with Icelandic musician Ólafur Arnalds on The Chopin Project (2015). The following year saw the release of the Wonderland recital, featuring Edvard Grieg's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 16 and the symphonic poem Peer Gynt, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. After another triumphant tour, she recorded the solo piano recital Nightfall (2018), featuring Claude Debussy's Suite bergamasque and Maurice Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit. Her next project, Echoes of Life (2021), assembles Chopin's Preludes Op. 28 with other pieces by Rota, Ligeti, Pärt, Gonzales and Tristano, and proves a success, reissued two years later in a luxurious edition. Shortly afterwards, a new Beethoven recital was released (2023), before the pianist devoted an album to Nocturnes by the little-known Irish composer John Field in 2025. The following year, Alice Sara Ott paid tribute to Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson with a selection of piano pieces in Jóhann Jóhannsson: Piano Works.