Alice Sara Ott: ‘I don’t want to have burn-out syndrome’
Posted By Admin on January 10, 2012
She once said she would prefer to be listened to in the dark. It sounds so
cheesy. But when I am melancholic, that is how I like to play. You are not
distracted by any visual thing.
Darkness might not go down too well with the record company: theres a
publicity shot of Ott in black sequins and little else, her naked back
curved over the instrument. I know the one, yes, she says before I even
describe it. Everyone needs to know their own limits. Im interested in
fashion. I know when to say no. The thing is, of course, we are girls. I
dont think people would like it if we came out in jogging pants. When
people go to a concert with a male pianist, like Arcadi Volodos or Grigory
Sokolov, nobody expects anything; they just concentrate on the music. But
for girls it is not like that.
She is screwing and unscrewing the lid of a water bottle when she talks. Now
she puts it down firmly on the table. In the end it doesnt really matter.
There are plenty of good-looking young people who can play an instrumenthellip; If
you dont have musical personality it is irrelevant.
Ott was born in Munich in 1988 to a German father, a civil engineer, and a
Japanese mother who had studied the piano in Tokyo. When she was five she
went to a concert and her passion for the piano was ignited, though it took
a year to persuade her mother to let her have lessons.
She says she was lucky that her Hungarian teacher gave her Bach from the
get-go (You have to work with your brain, because of the polyphony)
instead of churning finger-studies, and that music became a form of
communication for her. I thought people are finally listening to me without
misunderstanding me. They understood what I wanted to say.
Growing up in two cultures, she also found a refuge. In Germany people
sometimes call me ching-chang-chong, their expression for Chinese, which I
have got used to now, but which used to freak me out. They think Asian
people are all the same. And in Japan people are shocked that I speak
Japanese. In music it doesnt matter what nationality you have. It is more
important what you want to say and who you are. With music I was welcomed
everywhere. We were talking in a language above all this hate and racism.
Nobody pushed her to practise (It has to be your own motivation. I never
really knew what my parents thought about it), though there were strict
rules at home about computer games and television. All my friends had Game
Boys and Tamagotchis so I didnt understand it. But now, thinking back, I am
really thankful.
Her younger sister, Mona Asuka (also a professional pianist), began to play,
too. They had a Yamaha C grand piano and, after complaints from the
neighbours, finally moved from their flat in the centre of Munich to a
semi-detached house in the suburbs.
At 12, Ott was accepted by the prestigious Salzburg Mozarteum to study under
Karl-Heinz Kauml;mmerling, but continued her conventional education in Munich .
My school was very flexible. They said as long as my grades were OK. And
were they OK? She laughs, repeating the words in a more dubious tone. They
werehellip; OK.
She still lives with her parents the Yamaha has been relegated to the
basement since a bank in Lichtenstein sponsored a Steinway but these days
she only spends about six weeks a year at home. She has learnt to speak
English on tour New York, Italy, Japan, London.
What I love about my job is getting to know different cultures and
mentalities, discovering new cities. But I dont like the travelling because
it is really stressful, and aeroplanes are so cold that you get sick, and
hotelshellip; well, sure, there are fancy hotels but you are on your own and you
are not with people you are close to. I have realised I have my limits. I
try not to say yes to everything. I dont want to get to the age of 30 and
have burn-out syndrome.
Earlier in the interview, back on the subject of Game Boys, she delivered a
mini-lecture about the dangers of modern culture the businessmen at the
airport with their noses in their BlackBerries, who dont breathe, who
dont take time to think. Now she raises her eyebrows a little and says
ruefully, I am very grateful for modern high tech. My boyfriend is doing
opera in Philadelphia at the moment. I can call and I can Skype.
Her boyfriend is the American-Israeli conductor Benjamin Shwartz; they met
working for the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, in Edinburgh, earlier
this year. He is 32. But my last boyfriend was 37, she says quickly. I
met him at a festival. You know, its not that I have a father complex. Its
that I grew up in this world where people were always 10 years older than
me.
She talks about Shwartz in an animated manner how he lives in Berlin and
they argue whether Berlin or Munich is better; how when they were on tour
between Edinburgh and Glasgow he had an enormous suitcase and she a tiny
take-on bag. Hes not even the sort of person to care about clothes. He
said, I dont believe this. She unties her hair so it tumbles down her
back. For a minute she looks no older than her age.
What does she think her future holds? I love the piano and I love what I am
doing. But I also know I do not want to walk out of the artists entrance in
20 years time and see a family across the street and feel emptiness inside
me. I follow my gut instinct. It is like the Chopin or the Beethoven. There
are always people who say, This is not a good time; it is too early. But
if I feel now is the time, I have to do it. I would regret it if I didnt.
She wriggles her shoulders like a shiver. Life is a path; you leave a
fingerprint on a tree or a stone. Its there for ever and it remains. It is
what you believe in at that moment, and its full of your whole personality
and emotions. And then you go on and you dont look back.
Out of the window, secure in its mooring, the zeppelin balloon flies in the
wind.
Alice Sara Otts album Beethoven is out now on Deutsche Grammophon. She is
performing in the Southbank Centres International Piano Series on 22
November (southbankcentre.co.uk)
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