Alice Sara Ott was born August 1st in Munich. At the age of 13, the student of Professor Karl-Heinz Kämmerling at Mozarteum Salzburg was hailed the “Most Promising Artist” at the Hamamatsu International Piano Academy Competition, and two years later she went on to take the top prize at the Val Tidone International Piano Competition as the youngest contestant. Since then, Alice Sara Ott has given numerous performances in Tokyo, including sold-out concerts with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra and with the Kiev Philharmonic Orchestra. She regularly appears with the Sapporo Symphony Orchestra and was invited by Hiroko Nakamura to inaugurate the final round of the popular ten-year series “The 100 Pianists” in Japan.
In addition to her solo activities Alice Sara Ott is a keen chamber musician and makes regular appearances at the festivals in Heimbach, Zurich, Verbier, Davos and Schwetzingen alongside artists such as Lars Vogt, Gustav Rivinius, Tadjana Masurenko and Peter Sadlo. She also frequently appears in recital at the Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Braunschweig Classix Festival. She made her debut at the Lucerne Festival in 2010.
In 2012/13 Ott will appear with the Münchner Philharmoniker in Munich and the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo, both under Lorin Maazel. The Munich concerts will also be recorded as part of an Arte Maestro programme to be broadcast in 2013. The Tokyo concert is being followed by a recital tour of Japan. Other engagements this season include the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre National de Belgique, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Beethoven Orchester of Bonn and theOrquestra Simfònica de Barcelona. In recital, she gives debut performances at New York’s Le Poisson Rouge and Chicago’s Symphony Center, and makes return visits to Hamburg’s Laeiszhalle, London’s International Piano Series, and to the Berlin Philharmonie’s Chamber Music Hall.
In 2008 Alice Sara Ott signed as an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist, with her highly successful debut recording featuring the twelve Études d’exécution transcendante by Franz Liszt, followed by her second album, encompassing the complete Waltzes of Frédéric Chopin. In 2010 her orchestral debut recording was released – the First Piano Concertos of Liszt and Tchaikovsky, with Thomas Hengelbrock conducting the Münchner Philharmoniker – and she was named “Young Artist of the Year” at the Echo Klassik awards. Her recording of Beethoven Piano Sonatas was issued in August 2011. January 2013 will see the release of a live recording of her recital at St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre, including Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, from the 2012 White Nights Festival. Another CD will follow in spring 2013 in which she joins violinist Lisa Batiashvili in works by Clara Schumann.
Her younger sister, Mona Asukua Ott, has also started a very promising piano carriere at the highest level.
