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Of the two piano concertos written by French composer Maurice Ravel, Alice Sara Ott has had a much longer relationship with the Piano Concerto in G Major, which she first performed at age 17; now 37, she added the Piano Concerto for the Left Hand to her repertoire a few years ago. This fall, in a first for the Munich-born pianist, Ott will perform both pieces on the same program in four concerts with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (Sept. 25-28).
These works are “two of my absolute favorite concertos,” although “they couldn’t be more different,” Ott said in a recent interview. “I’m very much looking forward to bringing them together in one evening.”
First on the program is the Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, which was commissioned by pianist Paul Wittgenstein after he lost his right arm in the First World War. Ott used adjectives such as “dark,” “cynical,” “dangerous” and “macabre” to describe the piece. “It’s almost like you have this post-apocalyptic scene, and there’s not much left anymore, and you hear the echoes of what used to be life,” she said.
By contrast, the G Major concerto opens with a carnival-like atmosphere: “It feels like you’re part of a big celebration.” The first movement introduces elements of jazz, a genre that impressed Ravel during a tour of the United States in 1928, the year before he began composing both of his piano concertos. Ott added that the G Major concerto has “the most beautiful second movement … it is something out of this world.”
Another thing Ott loves about this piece is the interaction between the pianist and the orchestra members, who often pass solos back and forth. “It highlights so many instruments in the orchestra, and especially in the brass and the woodwinds section,” she said. “Actually, my favorite part is not the piano solo, but when the English horn plays this solo,“ she said. ”Then I get to accompany or build kind of like a fog carpet, together with the strings and the orchestra, and then on [top of] that is the floating solo of the English horn.”
It has been six years since Ott’s debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, when she performed Bartok’s Piano Concerto No. 3. She feels that she’s changed a lot as an artist since then. She acknowledges that the orchestra will have changed, too, but notes that forging new collaborations is part of what makes live music so special.
“What we do on stage, it’s a bunch of strangers very often coming together, especially when I, as a soloist, go to an orchestra for the very first time,” she said. “This time, it’s not the first time, but it’s been a while since I’ve been to Chicago, so I’m sure there are lots of new, young musicians in the orchestra who I don’t know. And so, we come together and do something together that requires such an intimacy and honesty and trust.”
In each of her performances, Ott tries to cultivate a similarly close connection with audience members. “I feel like the audience is such an important part of the music-making in a live concert. Without the support of the audience, it wouldn’t be possible,” she said. “So, for me, making music and being an artist is a lot about how I can decrease the distance between audience and performer in a classical concert hall.
“I think it’s one of the only places in today’s world where people actually come together seeking community and seeking what connects us and not what divides us, and where we are also united in the art and the act of listening,” Ott said. “That’s something we don’t do anymore that much, and music actually really requires that — not only that we listen to the music, but we are aware of each other, we create something together.”
In the 2025/26 season, Ott will tour Europe with both Ravel concertos (though not as a double bill) and Beethoven’s First and Third Piano Concertos; she also will give solo recitals pairing Beethoven sonatas with selected nocturnes by John Field, whose full cycle she recorded on her latest album for Deutsche Grammophon.
Her next album, scheduled for release in 2026, features solo piano works by Jóhann Jóhannson, a genre-spanning Icelandic composer, who died in 2018. Recording Jóhannson’s music was “a wonderful, meditative moment” for Ott. She hopes that listeners will find the album “a wonderful opportunity to really find this moment of awareness and calm and take a pause from this busy life that we experience.”
