About

A TAV Essential Listening Album.

“I have always loved the piano music of Frédéric Chopin, but had grown weary of the uniform and standardized perfection of recordings available and I was longing for someone to come along and try something different. And one day, on a long flight to London, I thought: why don't I do it myself? And thus, in partnership with the acclaimed German-Japanese pianist Alice Sara Ott, The Chopin Project” - Ólafur Arnalds

““Verses” is our introduction to the album. It’s a new composition by Arnalds that borrows from Chopin’s “Piano Sonata No. 3 (Largo),” which immediately follows as track 2. You know how when you were in junior high sometimes you bought a new album that you loved so much you didn’t even want to tell anyone about it? You just locked your door and stayed in your bedroom all night, lying in your bed, reading the liner notes, listening to the album over and over? “Verses” is exactly like that. It is intimate and sad with the trademark Arnalds atmosphere and makes you just want to stay inside journaling for hours and hours.

The entire album has that quality – it’s just one glorious, delicate piece after another. From the gentle shoosh-shoosh in “Reminiscence” (during which there’s a point where you can even hear a performer taking in breath) to the distant chatter and rainfall heard in “Nocturne in G Minor,” the recordings make the listener feel close to the piano – in the same room, even – and so very close to the music. Several tracks use Chopin as a jumping off point, which turns the album as a whole into a dreamlike story arc you wish would never end.” – Second Inversion

“The one instrumental record that I loved was a reimagining of Chopin by Ólafur Arnalds & Alice Sara Ott that's both ambient and intimate.”  - NPR Music / Bob Boilen’s Top 10 Albums of 2015

About Ólafur Arnalds:

Born 1986 in the suburban Icelandic town of Mosfellsbær, a few kilometres outside of Reykjavík, composer/performer Ólafur Arnalds has always enjoyed pushing boundaries with both his studio work and live-shows. Since the release of his debut album Eulogy for Evolution in 2007, he has built up a dedicated international following and is well established for his genre-crossing compositions blending classical, pop and ambient/electronica influences to create a unique musical language.

Starting out as drummer for several hardcore/metal bands, Ólafur was asked to write instrumental intros and outros for the album Antigone of German metal band, Heaven Shall Burn. This led to more work in the field of neo-classical strings and piano based music, and ultimately to the release of Eulogy for Evolution (released on Erased Tapes Records). In 2008 he embarked on a tour with fellow Icelanders Sigur Rós.

In 2009 he started a week-long project of composing one track by day, making it immediately available online to his fans. The collection was later officially released under the title Found Songs. He repeated the same experiment in 2011 under the title Living Room Songs.  2009 also saw the premiere of his first ballet Dyad 1909. Choreographed by Wayne McGregor it was inspired by Ernest Shackleton’s Nimrod expedition to the South Pole in 1909. His second full-length album ...And They Have Escaped The Weight Of Darkness was released in 2010.

His third album For now I am Winter came out in February 2013 and marked the beginning of his partnership with Mercury Classics/Universal Music. Expanding on his previous work the new album was the first to feature a full orchestra and vocals, delivered by Icelandic singer Arnór Dan. The album debuted at No. 1 in the US Classical Charts, was lauded by critics and fans alike and was supported by an extensive tour throughout North America, Europe, East Asia and Australia.

More recently Ólafur has been venturing into the world of film music. His work includes the full scores to Another Happy Day and Gimme Shelter, starring Vanessa Hudgens and Brendan Fraser. He also contributed to the soundtracks of Hunger Games and Looper, and has been featured several times on popular American television show So You Think You Can Dance.

In 2013 he scored the ITV thriller series Broadchurch. The series reached top ratings in the UK and France and subsequently earned Ólafur Arnalds a prestigious BAFTA Award for Best Original Television Music in 2014.

Projects in 2015 will include the work on the second season of Broadchurch, as well as a collaboration project with German-Japanese classical pianist Alice Sara Ott. – Mercury Classics

About Alice Sara Ott:

German-Japanese pianist Alice Sara Ott has gained critical acclaim for her performances at major concert halls worldwide and has established herself as one of the most exciting musical talents of today. The Guardian, commenting on her recent performance with the London Symphony Orchestra, said that she “gave the kind of gawp-inducing bravura performance of which legends are made”.

Alice has worked with the world’s leading conductors, including Lorin Maazel, Paavo Järvi, Neeme Järvi, James Gaffigan, Sakari Oramo, Osmo Vänskä, Vasily Petrenko, Myung-Whun Chung, Hannu Lintu and Robin Ticciati.

Highlights of the 2016/17 season include concerts with St Petersburg Philharmonic (Yuri Temirkanov), Washington’s National Symphony (Edo de Waart) and Royal Scottish National orchestras, and tours with the Philharmonia Orchestra (Vladimir Ashkenazy) and NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester (Krzystof Urbański). Recently Alice has debuted with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (Gustavo Dudamel), Chicago Symphony (Pablo Heras-Casado), the Royal Philharmonic (Charles Dutoit) orchestras, and Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks (Esa-Pekka Salonen). She also returned to Münchner Philharmoniker and toured with Wiener Symphoniker, hr-Sinfonieorchester and Tonkünstler Orchestra.

Recording exclusively for Deutsche Grammophon since 2008, Alice has released albums of works by Beethoven, Liszt and Mussorgsky, among others. Her album of Chopin’s complete waltzes, which entered the German and US Classical iTunes charts at No.1, won Alice the ECHO Klassik Young Artist of the Year Award. Her debut concerto album – works by Tchaikovsky and Liszt with Münchner Philharmoniker and Thomas Hengelbrock – was named Editor’s Choice in both the International Piano and Classic FM magazines. Alice’s recent recording, The Chopin Project, with Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds, was released in March 2015 on Mercury Classics. The album reached No.1 in the Official UK Classical Chart and the iTunes chart in 25 other countries.

Alice’s new album Wonderland is to be released worldwide in September 2016. The album includes Grieg’s Piano Concerto recorded with Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunk and Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Grieg’s Lyric Pieces. The album coincides with her worldwide recital tour in the 2016/17 season which will feature works by Grieg and Liszt. The tour begins in autumn 2016 with nine performances across Japan, including at Tokyo Opera City, and then continues to Taiwan and China in winter 2017. In spring 2017, she will bring the programme to Europe and give performances in Berlin, Munich, Oslo, Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Dusseldorf.

Alice has been selected as the 2016 Worldwide Brand Ambassador for Technics, the hi-fi audio brand of Panasonic Corporation. Additionally, Alice has personally designed a signature line of high-end leather bags for Leonhard Heyden to be launched at Berlin Fashion Week in 2017. Alice’s designs include origami elements, reflecting her Japanese heritage, and the inside of the bags will also feature Alice’s hand drawn designs. In summer 2016, Alice also sketched and deigned her own sticker series “And Here Comes Alice”. They are available to download from one of the most popular communication app, LINE. – Alice Sara Ott Official

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