Alice Sara Ott

Piano

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“Her technique is dazzling, her tone wonderfully varied, from crystalline purity to powerfully raw, and the energy propelling her playing seems unstoppable.”
(The Guardian)

The 2020/21 season will see German-Japanese pianist Alice Sara Ott continue her ascent as one of today’s most in-demand classical pianists. During the 2019/20 season she performed with the world’s leading orchestras such as London Symphony Orchestra, hr-Sinfonieorchester, WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, Münchner Philharmoniker, as well as made her debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker with Santtu-Matias Rouvali.

Ott also performs as artist-in-residence at China’s National Centre for the Performing Arts and continues her international recital tour of Nightfall, her latest album on Deutsche Grammophon with works by Satie, Debussy and Ravel, for which she has performed across Europe and China. This season, Ott will record her next album for the label, with whom she has been an exclusive recording artist for over ten years. She will also have a special collaboration with MünchenMusik as one of their focus artists of the 2020/21 season.

With her talent not limited to a global career as a high-level performing artist, Alice Sara Ott also expresses her diverse creativity through a number of design and brand partnerships beyond the borders of classical music. She was personally requested to design a signature line of high-end leather bags for JOST, one of Germany’s premium brands. Alice has been global brand ambassador for Technics, the hi-fi audio brand of Panasonic Corporation, and she has an ongoing collaboration with the French luxury jewellery house, Chaumet, part of the LVMH group.

Alice Sara Ott has worked with conductors at the highest level including Gustavo Dudamel, Pablo Heras-Casado, Ed Gardner, Paavo Järvi, Neeme Järvi, Sir Antonio Pappano, Gianandrea Noseda, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Yuri Temirkanov, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sakari Oramo, Osmo Vänskä, Myung-Whun Chung, Hannu Lintu and Robin Ticciati. She continues to perform with ensembles such as Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Washington’s National Symphony Orchestra, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and the Wiener Symphoniker

Alice Sara Ott – Nightfall trailer © Deutsche Grammophon

Alice Sara Ott – Satie “Gnossienne No.1” © Deutsche Grammophon

Alice Sara Ott – Ravel “Gaspard de la nuit” © Deutsche Grammophon

Alice Sara Ott – Nightfall © Deutsche Grammophon

Nightfall- Debussy "Clair de Lune" © Deutsche Grammophon

Alice Sara Ott

Alice Sara Ott - short promo clip © Deutsche Grammophon

Alice Sara Ott

Alice Sara Ott - Liszt Piano Concerto © Deutsche Grammophon

Alice Sara Ott - excerpt from Transcendental Etudes © Deutsche Grammophon

“She has the most delicate touch, the first movement cadenza pirouetting with the grace of a music-box ballerina… She transformed the finale into a playful Scherzo, playing cat and mouse with the orchestra.”

(Bachtrack, June, 2019)

“a seemingly limitless capacity to lend warmth, depth and color”

(WQXR, December 2018)

“German-Japanese pianist Alice Sara Ott shades the most photosensitive pieces of French Impressionism — Debussy’s dreamy Suite bergamasque and Ravel’s ghoulish Gaspard de la nuit — with a seemingly limitless capacity to lend warmth, depth and color.”

(WQXR, November 2018)

“Her octave passages took the breath away, and her dynamic range was wholly exceptional”

Robert Matthew-Walker, Classical Source, October 2017

“The fierceness with which the climax of the minor-key variations was presented, turned out to be a foretaste of the Liszt sonata, which was unflinchingly raw and direct, with snarling basslines and razor-edged chords. The performance did indeed conjure up the kind of threatening world Ott had spoken of, but it was presented with such technical brilliance, so crisply and cleanly articulated, that nothing was overbearing or overinsistent, but always dramatic and absorbing.”

Andrew Clements, The Guardian, October 2017

“Alice Sara Ott proved a highly individual soloist in Beethoven’s serious-minded Third Piano Concerto. It can seldom have been played with quite so much brittle clarity — it felt at times as if she was attempting to emulate the sound of a fortepiano on a heavier modern instrument, but it worked a treat in the Concerto’s filigree passagework.”

**** David Kettle, The Scotsman, May 2017