Alice Sara Ott

The sister of Mona Asuka Ott - herself a highly regarded musician - Alice Sara Ott is a German-Japanese classical pianist particularly noted for her interpretations of the works of Liszt and Chopin, and has been praised around the world for her dynamic playing. Born in Munich on August 1, 1988, she was encouraged by her Japanese mother to study piano from the age of four, reaching the finals of a youth competition in her home city when she was just five years old, and instantly felt an affinity with music, describing it as "a language that goes beyond words". At the age of 12 she studied piano at the Salzburg Mozarteum with Karl-Heinz Kammerling. Winning numerous regional competitions, she was signed to the Deutsche Grammophon label at 19 and made her recording debut with Liszt: Etudes d'exécution transcendante, which went to number 30 on Billboard's Classical Albums Chart in 2010. The same year she made her breakthrough in the UK as a late stand-in for Lang Lang at the Barbican when her performance was described by one critic as "the kind of gawp-inducing bravura performance of which legends are made". She went on to have further success with Tchaikovsky/Liszt: First Piano Concertos (2010), Chopin: Complete Waltzes (2010) and Beethoven (2011), all of which enhanced her reputation further. She went on to become a major concert attraction, performing with the Chicago Symphony, London Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Washington National Symphony and Wiener Symphoniker, attracting much interest and endless publicity with her model looks, quirky personality, and explosive playing, often appearing on stage in a ballgown and bare feet. She was particularly acclaimed when a live performance of piano works by Modest Mussorgsky and Franz Schubert in St. Petersburg was recorded for Pictures (2013) and she teamed with pianist Francesco Tristano for dance pieces on Scandale (2014). She partnered with Icelandic electronic musician and composer Ólafur Arnalds for The Chopin Project in 2015, featuring works by Chopin and Arnalds drawn from Chopin motifs, which reached number six on the Billboard Classical Albums Chart. She followed this with Wonderland: Edvard Grieg - Piano Concerto/Lyric Pieces (2016), with the Bavarian Radio Orchestra conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. After the recital of various composers Nightfall (2021), the next project Echoes of Light (2021), devoted to the Chopin's Preludes, Op. 28, melted with pieces of Rota, Ligeti, Pärt, Gonzales and Tristano. This success was subject to a Deluxe Edition two years later, before the release of a second Beethoven recital. In 2025, the pianist celebrates the unsung Irish composer John Field through his Nocturnes.