Award-winning Icelandic pop / classical musician Ólafur Arnalds had always been deeply moved by Chopin's piano music, but had grown increasingly weary of the ever-same and standardized "perfection" of relevant recordings. So the urge grew in him to approach Chopin differently with his own recording interpretation. "Why should we use the technology at our disposal only as a tool and not also as a means of interpretation? Why shouldn't the microphones, the space - the sound - also be contributors to the performance?" In partnership with the magnificent German-Japanese pianist Alice Sara Ott, The Chopin Project was created.