[TR24][OF] Alice Sara Ott - Jóhann Jóhannsson/Johann Johannsson: Piano Works – From Englabörn/Englaborn - 2025 (Classical • Piano)

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Alice Sara Ott
Pianist Alice Sara Ott was well known as a child prodigy. She has parlayed that fame into an adult career that has included critical acclaim and a contract with the Deutsche Grammophon label that resulted in an innovative collaboration with electronic musician Ólafur Arnalds. By the mid-2020s, she had established a flourishing concert career and accumulated a large recording catalog. In 2025, she released the album John Field: Complete Nocturnes on Deutsche Grammophon.Ott was born in Munich on August 1, 1988. Her father was a civil engineer, and her mother was a pianist of Japanese background. Ott took up the piano at four, and the following year, she reached the final round of a youth competition in Munich, playing before a full house. At seven, she won Germany's Jugend Musiziert competition, a win followed by a long series of youth contest victories. At 12, Ott matriculated at the Salzburg Mozarteum, studying with Karl-Heinz Kämmerling. In 2005, she appeared as the soloist in the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, Op. 23, with the Sapporo Symphony Orchestra; reaction was strongly favorable, and since then, she has often toured in Japan as well as in the U.S. and Europe, where a 2008 performance as a last-minute substitute for Murray Perahia drew a standing ovation and broadened her reputation. The following year, she released her debut album, Liszt: Etudes d'exécution transcendante, on Deutsche Grammophon.A live Ott performance of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 and the Liszt Piano Concerto No. 1 in E flat major with the Munich Philharmonic was recorded by the label and issued in 2010. Ott has gone on to make more than a dozen recordings with Deutsche Grammophon. An exception was one of Ott's most publicized releases, The Chopin Project, a collaboration with electronic musician Ólafur Arnalds, which appeared on the Mercury label. In 2019, Ott announced that she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, but she had continued to perform and record. In 2021, on Deutsche Grammophon, she released the album Wonderland, devoted to the music of Edvard Grieg, and 2023 saw the release of the recital Beethoven. Ott often plays the relatively obscure piano music of Irish composer John Field, and in 2025, she released the album John Field: Complete Nocturnes on Deutsche Grammophon.

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Pianist Alice Sara Ott releases the second EP of piano transcriptions of famous works by late Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson. Piano Works – From Englabörn features piano interpretations of works from Jóhannsson’s first solo studio album Englabörn. These premiere recordings of the piano scores published recently by Faber Music are hauntingly beautiful interpretations that capture the essence of Jóhannsson’s music.
“What’s so incredible about Jóhannsson’s music,” says Ott, “is how his compositions, originally written for larger ensembles and different instruments, translate so beautifully to the piano. Within this more focused and intimate sound world, the writing reveals hidden nuances and enhances the purity and clarity that are so intrinsic to his music.”
As part of the overarching project and leading up to the release of a full album featuring the composer’s most famous works next year, Ott has now released two digital EPs. The first EP focusing on Jóhannsson’s film music was released on 7 November.