Sarah Aristidou

he award-winning French coloratura soprano Sarah Aristidou is in demand both in opera and concert repertoire, as well as in folk music and as a live improvisation artist. She is considered one of the most innovative and creative artists of her generation and in 2022 became the first singer to receive the Belmont Prize for Contemporary Music.

Her debut album AETHER (2021), recorded together with Thomas Guggeis and Daniel Barenboim as well as Emmanuel Pahud and Christian Rivet, was nominated for a BBC Music Magazine Award. The programme spans composers from Handel to Varèse and includes Jörg Widmann’s Labyrinth V. Her extensive discography also includes her second solo album Enigma, which received the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik, as well as Thomas Larcher’s The Living Mountain (ECM), S’Agapo with Kaan Bulak (Feral Note), and Max Cooper’s EP Seme, presented at the Salzburg Easter Festival (Austria) in 2024.

She achieved particular acclaim as Venus and Gepopo in György Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre in two celebrated new productions at the Vienna State Opera and the Bavarian State Opera in Munich (Germany). As Zerbinetta in Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos she has appeared at the Vienna State Opera, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin (Germany), Oper Frankfurt (Germany), and the Semperoper Dresden (Germany). As Ismene in Mozart’s Mitridate she has performed in productions in Copenhagen (Denmark), Malmö (Sweden), and Berlin (Germany).

She made a widely acclaimed debut at the Salzburg Festival (Austria) in Morton Feldman’s Neither and returned the following season both with Klangforum Wien under Beat Furrer, conducting his own work Begehren, and with Georg Friedrich Haas’s Koma.

She made her debut with the Berlin Philharmonic in Edgard Varèse’s Offrandes, and performed Transfiguré – 12 vies de Schönberg with the Orchestre de Paris (France). With the Staatskapelle Berlin she presented George Benjamin’s Into the Little Hill and Mind of Fire, with the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne (Germany) Ligeti’s Mysteries of the Macabre, with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, and with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich (Germany)—under the composer’s baton—Matthias Pintscher’s With Lilies White.

Sarah Aristidou also received outstanding reviews for her performances as Shoko in the world premiere of Thomas Larcher’s Das Jagdgewehr, a co-production of the Bregenz Festival (Austria) and the Aldeburgh Festival (United Kingdom), and as Hanako in Toshio Hosokawa’s Hanjo, with which she made her debut at the Bavarian State Opera in a joint production by choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija.

Another world premiere in which she participated was Beat Furrer’s Das Große Feuer, in which she created the role of Aquella Muchacha. She also recently made her debut with the Cleveland Orchestra under Franz Welser-Möst in Francis Poulenc’s La Voix humaine and appeared for the first time at the BBC Proms (London, United Kingdom) with the Ensemble Intercontemporain.

Highlights of the 2025/26 season include Venus/Gepopo in Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre at the Vienna State Opera, appearances at the Helsinki Festival (Finland), participation in the opening of Musikfest Berlin (Germany) 2026, as well as engagements in Bucharest (Romania), at the London Festival of Chamber Music (United Kingdom), the Prague Spring Festival (Czech Republic), and in Pascal Dusapin’s Passion at the Salzburg Festival.

Sarah Aristidou’s voice has inspired several compositions, including Aribert Reimann’s Cinq fragments lyriques and Jörg Widmann’s Labyrinth IV.