Sarah Aristidou

The French soprano Sarah Aristidou is one of the most innovative artists of her generation. She has swiftly made a name for herself on both the opera stage and the concert platform, and has worked with conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Pablo Heras-Casado, Marc Minkowski, Kent Nagano, François-Xavier Roth, Trevor Pinnock and Simon Rattle.

Highlights of 2024/25 have included her debut at the Zurich Opera House in the world premiere of Beat Furrer’s Das grosse Feuer, performances of Poulenc’s La Voix humaine with the Cleveland Orchestra under Franz Welser-Möst, Berio’s Recital for Cathy at Bozar and at the Royal Albert Hall, Boulez’s Pli selon pli on tour with Les Siècles, Boulez’s Le Soleil des eaux with the Orchestre National de France under Juraj Valčuha and Fauré’s Requiem with the Orchestre de Paris under Klaus Mäkelä. She also performed Jörg Widmann’s Versuch über die Fuge under the baton of the composer at the Auditori in Barcelona.

Recently she has given groundbreaking performances as Venus / Gepopo in György Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre at the Vienna and Bavarian State Operas and as Zerbinetta (Ariadne auf Naxos) in Vienna, Berlin and Frankfurt. In 2021 she made her debut at the Salzburg Festival in Morton Feldman’s Neither, returning in 2024 in Furrer’s Begehren. She has performed at the Salzburg Easter Festival with DJ Max Cooper.

As a specialist in contemporary music, she has performed numerous works composed for her, among them Aribert Reimann’s Cinq Fragments français de Rainer Maria Rilke and Jörg Widmann’s Labyrinth IV. She has sung in Thomas Larcher’s Das Jagdgewehr at the Bregenz Festival and at the Aldeburgh Festival, and performed Hans Abrahamsen’s let me tell you with the Philharmonie Zuidnederland, George Benjamin’s Mind of Winter and Into the Little Hill with the Staatskapelle Berlin, Matthias Pintscher’s with lilies white with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the world premiere of Brett Dean’s Ich lausche und ich höre with the Scharoun Ensemble Berlin.

Sarah Aristidou’s debut album ÆTHER was nominated for the BBC Music Magazine Award, and her Album Enigma received the German Record Critics’ Award in 2024. Her recent albums also include Larcher’s The Living Mountain (ECM) and Max Cooper’s EP Seme.

In 2022 she became the first singer to be awarded the Belmont Prize for contemporary music.