B-Classic - Alice Sara Ott

Alice Sara Ott

Alice Sara Ott was born in Munich in 1988 to a German father and a Japanese mother. Even at the age of three, she could not stop playing the piano. She was barely five when she played the finals of the Jugend Musikwettbewerb in Munich. At twelve, she was accepted into the class of the renowned pedagogue KarlHeinz Kämmerling at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. When she replaced the ailing Murray Perahia in Basel in 2008, her international career took off. Her debut followed shortly afterwards at the festivals of Lucerne and Verbier. She was invited as a soloist with leading orchestras such as Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, gave her debut recital at the Wigmore Hall in London and toured with Icelandic composer and instrumentalist Ólafur Arnalds. In 2008 Ott was offered an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon. Her first CD on this label is dedicated to Liszt's Etudes d'exécution transcendante. On the second album she can be heard in Waltzes by Chopin. In 2010 Ott received the Echo Klassik-Preis for 'Nachwuchskünstlerin des Jahres'. Recordings of works by Beethoven, Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and Schubert's Sonata in D, D850, followed. In 2014 the CD Scandale appeared with Stravinsky's Le Sacre du printemps in a version for two pianos with Franceso Tristano. Wonderland followed two years later, featuring Grieg's Piano Concerto with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks conducted by Esa-Pekka-Salonen and a selection of Grieg's Lyrische Stücke. On the 2018 CD Nightfall she explores the play of light and shadow in works by Debussy, Satie and Ravel. In 2021 Echoes Of Life was released, her tenth CD on Deutsche Grammophon. alicesaraott.com last update: 25 January 2022