Biography

Sarah Aristidou is a French soprano and agile coloratura renowned for her radiant stage presence and emotional depth. Equally at home in classical, contemporary, and folk music, as well as in improvisation, she brings precision, sensuality, and expressive authenticity to every performance. Her artistic philosophy, embodied in her album ÆTHER, centres on the beauty of shared silence, born from the vastness of an authentic note. Several leading contemporary composers, including Aribert Reimann, Jörg Widmann, and Thomas Larcher, have written works specifically for her voice, attesting to her exceptional versatility and artistry.

Aristidou has collaborated with distinguished conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Sir Simon Rattle, and François-Xavier Roth, and with contemporary music figures like Max Cooper and Ricardo Villalobos. Her stage collaborations extend to visionaries such as Krzysztof Warlikowski and Olafur Eliasson. She has performed with major orchestras, including the Berliner Philharmoniker, Wiener Philharmoniker, and Cleveland Orchestra, and appeared at leading opera houses and festivals such as the Wiener Staatsoper, Bayerische Staatsoper, and Salzburger Festspiele.

Her achievements have been widely recognized: she became the first singer to receive the Belmont Prize for Contemporary Music (2022) and has also been awarded the Luitpold Prize (2021) and the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik (2024). Aristidou has been nominated ‘Best Newcomer’ by BBC Music  Magazine (2023) and Die Opernwelt (2023, 2019, 2016), and as ‘Révélation Artiste Lyrique’ at the Victoires de la Musique Classique (2022). Her recent discography includes SEME (Meshmesh, 2023), ENIGMA (Alpha Classics, 2023), The Living Mountain (ECM, 2023), ÆTHER (Alpha Classics, 2021), and S’Agapo (Feral Note 2021).