When Alice Sara Ott walked into our Tiny Desk workplace area she was fascinated by all of the knickknacks and doodads musicians have left on the cabinets over time. She instantly started working, folding an origami swan, which might be her personal contribution. However first, it was given pleasure of place atop our trusty Yamaha upright — a talisman of fine issues to return.

“Music is timeless,” the 34-year-old German-born pianist advised the viewers. And to show it she served up almost 200-year-old music by Chopin blended with a up to date work that appears again in time by the Canadian composer, pianist and genre-buster Chilly Gonzales. “If we understand music as outdated, dusty and elite, or if it feels trendy, related and inclusive to us, relies upon a lot on the context,” Ott added.

Chopin, whose cycle of Opus 28 Preludes dominate the set checklist, nonetheless sounds remarkably related immediately. Ott opens with a hurricane of passionate anguish within the Prelude No. 24 in D minor. She stabs on the music’s last inky black notes, like pounding nails in a coffin. What follows could not be extra opposite: the Prelude No. 7 in A serious Ott describes as charming and harmless, like a “fragment of a reminiscence.” Gonzales’ personal Prelude in C sharp main has Bach within the rearview mirror and but appears to be like out forward towards ambient music and minimalism. With out pause, Chopin’s well-known “Raindrop” Prelude, with these insistent, nervous droplets, caps off a live performance by a considerate pianist prepared to inject a full measure of emotion into music that calls for it.

SET LIST

• Chopin: Prelude Op. 28, No. 24
• Chopin: Prelude Op. 28, No. 7
• Chilly Gonzales: Prelude in C-Sharp Main
• Chopin: Prelude Op. 28, No. 15 “Raindrop”

MUSICIANS

TINY DESK TEAM

• Producer: Tom Huizenga
• Director/Editor: Kara Body
• Audio Engineer: Neil Tevault
• Artistic Director: Bob Boilen 
• Collection Producer: Bobby Carter
• Videographers: Kara Body, Sofia Seidel
• Audio Assistant: Jay Czys
• Manufacturing Assistant: Alanté Serene
• Photographer: Elizabeth Gillis
• Tiny Desk Group: Suraya Mohamed, Josh Rogosin, Maia Stern, Joshua Bryant, Hazel Cills, Ashley Pointer
• VP, Visuals and Music: Keith Jenkins
• Senior VP, Programming: Anya Grundmann