ALICE SARA OTT AND DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON CELEBRATE EXTRAORDINARY SUCCESSES AND PARTNERSHIP
Alice Sara Ott, Frank Briegmann (Chairman & CEO Universal Music Central Europe and Deutsche Grammophon) (left),
Dr Clemens Trautmann (President Deutsche Grammophon and New Business Strategy Global Classics) (right)
Photo © Stefan Höderath
28 JANUARY 2026 (TORONTO, ON) — Monday evening Alice Sara Ott performed her chart-breaking album repertoire at Konzerthaus Berlin, and the Yellow Label’s top executives took the opportunity to congratulate her on an extraordinary series of successes. Building on nearly two decades of collaboration, the partnership enters 2026 with exciting projects ahead.
On 6 March the pianist presents a collection of world premiere recordings of music by Jóhann Jóhannsson. Recorded in the late composer’s native Iceland, the 30-track Deutsche Grammophon album draws on an edition of solo piano transcriptions of his works recently published by Faber Music. These span the composer’s career, from studio albums such as Englabörn and Orphée to the pioneering scores he wrote for documentaries or feature films such as Copenhagen Dreams, Personal Effects and the Golden-Globe-winning The Theory of Everything. The next track “Flight from the City” will be released on 30 January.
2025 has seen Alice Sara Ott underline in style her status as one of the world’s most influential classical artists. Critical acclaim, chart success and touring triumphs, not to mention nominations and awards, have all come Ott’s way in the last twelve months, adding to her reputation for innovative programming as well as poetic, technically brilliant and emotionally direct playing.
The pianist’s album John Field · Complete Nocturnes reached the No.1 spot in the classical charts of Japan, the UK and Germany, where it also made the Top 30 in the pop charts. The recording is hugely successful on streaming platforms; it is the Apple Music Classical Album of the Year 2025 and remained eleven weeks at the top of the Apple Music Classical chart. It also secured first place in the end-of-year playlist for classical music on Spotify and Qobuz.
As a complement to the recording, Ott worked with director and tenor Andrew Staples to create Alice Sara Ott: Nocturne, a 45-minute film shot at Munich’s Hyperbowl virtual production house. With its custom-designed digital landscapes, the film offers a rare glimpse into the artist’s mind during the creative process. Nocturne was named Audiovisual Music Production of the Year at the OPUS KLASSIK Awards in October 2025, and was also shortlisted in the “Documentaries dedicated to music, dance and theatre” category at the Golden Prague Festival.
The German-Japanese pianist is currently touring Europe and Asia with her successful recital programme featuring works by Field and Beethoven. On 14 March she will be part of the Hamburger Bahnhof – National Gallery of Contemporary Art’s 30th anniversary gala “A Night in Berlin”, where she will perform a work by Ryuichi Sakamoto.
Alice Sara Ott signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon in 2008 and has since released a series of highly acclaimed albums. She made her debut on the yellow label in 2009 with Liszt's Études d'exécution transcendante, followed by Chopin's waltzes and her first orchestral recording with piano concertos by Liszt and Tchaikovsky, for which she was awarded the Echo Klassik prize for ‘Young Artist of the Year’ in 2010. In the following years, she released recordings of works by Beethoven, Mussorgsky, Schubert, Clara Schumann, Stravinsky and Grieg, and collaborated with artists such as Lisa Batiashvili, Francesco Tristano and Ólafur Arnalds. Ott increasingly made a name for herself with conceptual albums such as Nightfall and Echoes of Life, in which she combines classical works with contemporary music.