Barbican announces Alice Sara Ott for year-long residency in 2027
Credit: Hannes Caspar
Today (16 September 2026) the Barbican announces acclaimed pianist Alice Sara Ott for a year-long artist residency. Throughout 2027, Ott will present a series of performances and cross-artform projects at the international arts and event centre.
The residency will include the UK premiere of Bryce Dessner’s Love, Icebox starring award-winning actor Isabelle Huppert, a first-time collaboration with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, and the world premiere of a new staging of Schubert’s Winterreise at Milton Court with celebrated baritone Benjamin Appl.
Recognised for her distinctive artistic language presented through programmes and contemporary formats that challenge convention, Alice Sara Ott’s work rethinks the relationship between repertoire, performer and audience. Her residency, which begins in March 2027, will offer UK audiences a series of deeply personal, uniquely curated performances spanning contemporary composition, orchestral masterpieces, and intimate vocal work.
A global artist who performs in the most prestigious venues both as solo pianist and with the world’s leading orchestras, Ott’s recent album on Deutsche Grammophon of John Field’s Nocturnes spent nine weeks at No.1 on the Apple Music Classical Chart and she recently appeared as a mentor on Channel 4’s mainstream programme The Piano. Ott brings her forward-thinking musicality to the Barbican in 2027 across three distinctive projects, plus an additional project yet to be announced.
More information about each of the specific projects can be found below.
Tickets for Barbican Members are on-sale today. Tickets for General Public are on-sale on Friday 18 September.
To find out more about the Barbican’s full season of Classical Music for 2026-27, click here.
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Love, Icebox: Alice Sara Ott,
Isabelle Huppert & Bryce Dessner (UK Premiere)
Thursday 25 March 2027, 8.15pm
Barbican Hall
Tickets from £20 plus booking fee
As part of her Barbican residency, Alice Sara Ott presents the UK premiere of Bryce Dessner’s acclaimed work Love, Icebox, created especially for her and premiered at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris in 2025. Inspired by Love, Icebox: Letters from John Cage to Merce Cunningham, the performance explores one of the twentieth century’s most remarkable artistic and personal partnerships.
Through intimate letters read by acclaimed Academy-nominated and BAFTA and Golden Globe winning actor Isabelle Huppert, Dessner’s evocative score weaves new music alongside works by John Cage and Erik Satie. Love, Icebox is aconceived as an immersive theatrical experience with dramaturgy by Silvia Costa, lighting design by Tom Visser, and live electronics by Benjamin Lanz, spoken word, music, and visual design become interwoven and inseparable.
Produced by the Barbican
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Alice Sara Ott & Academy of St Martin in the Fields
Sunday 6 June 2027, 7.30pm
Barbican Hall
Tickets from £35 plus booking fee
Alice Sara Ott and Academy of St Martin in the Fields (ASMF)join forces for the first time to perform one of Alice’s signature pieces in a powerful programme of Ravel, Stravinsky and Mozart.
Following years of mutual artistic admiration, Alice Sara Ott and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields unite in London for their first-ever collaboration as Ott performs Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major. The programme also includes Stravinsky’s Dumbarton Oaks, concluding with Mozart’s Symphony No. 35 ‘Haffner’.
Produced by the Barbican
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Schubert’s Winterreise: Alice Sara Ott & Benjamin Appl
directed by Andrew Staples (World Premiere)
Wednesday 15 December 2027, 7.30pm
Milton Court Concert Hall
Tickets from £38 plus booking fee
Internationally celebrated pianist Alice Sara Ott’s Barbican residency culminates at Milton Court with the world premiere of a brand-new staging of Schubert’s Winterreise with baritone Benjamin Appl.
Marking Alice Sara Ott’s first-ever exploration of the iconic song cycle, undertaken alongside her friend Benjamin Appl, the project is directed by Andrew Staples, continuing a fruitful creative partnership that previously led to acclaimed multidisciplinary projects from Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time and the award-winning film Nocturne which accompanied Ott’s chart-topping John Field album.
Produced by the Barbican
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About Alice Sara Ott
Pianist Alice Sara Ott is one of the most original musical voices of her generation. Her work brings together performance, recording and visual storytelling in projects shaped by a distinct artistic identity and a compelling, contemporary narrative. Whether re-examining familiar repertoire or introducing audiences to new music, she approaches each programme as a world of its own. She is also one of the world’s most streamed classical pianists, having been an exclusive recording artist for Deutsche Grammophon for almost twenty years.