Kit Armstrong (
Chinese: 周善祥;
pinyin: Zhōu Shànxiáng, born March 5, 1992) is an American classical pianist, composer, organist, and former
child prodigy of British-Taiwanese parentage.[1][2]
Education
Armstrong was born in
Los Angeles into a non-musical family.[3] He displayed interest in
sciences,
languages and
mathematics.[4] At the age of 5, and without access to a piano, he taught himself
musical composition by reading an abridged encyclopedia.[5] He subsequently began formal studies in piano with Mark Sullivan and in composition with Michael Martin (1997–2001).
In June 2003, Armstrong was invited to play at the
Carnegie Hall to celebrate the 150th anniversary of
Steinway & Sons. In 2006 he won the "Kissinger Klavierolymp", a competition of young pianists related to the festival
Kissinger Sommer.[12] Among his recital projects in 2010 was a programme including etudes by Chopin and Ligeti, and J. S. Bach's Inventions and Sinfoniae. In 2011, in honour of the 200th anniversary of the birth of
Franz Liszt, Armstrong played a series of recitals featuring works by Bach and Liszt, including a concert on Liszt's 1862
Bechstein piano in
Nike Wagner's festival Pelerinages. In 2016 and 2017 Armstrong appeared at the
Salzburg Mozartwoche [
de] with
Renaud Capuçon.[13] Armstrong was the "artiste étoile" of the 2016
Mozart Festival Würzburg[14] and of the
Bern Symphony Orchestra.[15]
Chamber music is one of Armstrong's central interests. He performs with the Szymanowski String Quartet and in a piano trio with Andrej Bielow (violin) and Adrian Brendel (cello), and has given lieder recitals with Andreas Wolf and
Thomas Bauer [
de].
The
Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival awarded Armstrong the 2010 Leonard Bernstein Award.[16] In 2011 he received the Förderpreis für Musik from the Kurt-Alten-Stiftung. The
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival [
de] announced Kit Armstrong as WEMAG-Soloist prizewinner in 2014.[17][18] Kit Armstrong was the festival's 2018 "prizewinner in residence", featuring in 24 concerts throughout the summer of 2018.[19] Kit Armstrong was named holder of the
Beethoven Ring in 2018.[20]
Starting in March 2020, he has published every day a video from this church, sharing a piece of music together with personal and musicological explanations. This video series, "Musique, ma patrie", is the subject of profiles in French national television and press.[21][22]
Career as composer
Armstrong composes for a wide variety of ensembles in various styles and genres. His compositions include one symphony, five concertos, six quintets, seven quartets, two trios, five duos, and 21 solo pieces.
Many of his ensemble works have been performed publicly: his Symphony No. 1, Celebration was performed by the
Pacific Symphony in March 2000; a string quartet commissioned by the Gewandhaus zu Leipzig in honour of Alfred Brendel's 80th birthday was premiered by the Szymanowski String Quartet in 2011;[23] the piano trio Stop laughing, we're rehearsing! was recorded with Andrej Bielow and Brendel for
GENUIN in 2012.[24] On January 27, 2015, the
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin performed a new
fortepianoconcerto by Armstrong.[25]
Armstrong has received many awards for his compositions: in 1999, his Chicken Sonata was awarded the first prize by the Music Teachers' Association of California, and in 2000, Five Elements won him another first prize from the same group. In 2001, he received a $10,000 Davidson Fellows Scholarship from the
Davidson Institute for Talent Development.[4] Armstrong has received six Morton Gould Young Composer Awards from the
ASCAP Foundation in New York,[28] for Struwwelpeter:
Character Pieces for viola and piano.
Works
This section needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(January 2022)
Album- William Byrd & John Bull : The Visionaries of Piano Music (2021)
Landscapes, Piano Quintet in F Minor (2006) – Commissioned by the International Chamber Music Festival The Hague
Wind Quintet, Theme and Six Variations (2004)
Bug Quintet, Piano Quintet in G (2003)
A Day of Chatting and Playing, Theme and Six Variations for flute, violin, viola, cello and piano (2001)
Orchestra
Andante (2012) – Commissioned by Musikkollegium Winterthur
Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra (2010) – Commissioned by Frankfurter BachKonzerte
Piano Concerto in F (2005)
Anticipation, Cello Concerto in G (2003)
Piano Concerto in D Minor (2001)
Celebration, Symphony in F (2000)
Discography
In September 2008, Armstrong recorded Bach, Liszt and Mozart for Plushmusic.tv.[29]
In 2011, the film Set the Piano Stool on Fire by
Mark Kidel was released on
DVD, chronicling the relationship between pianist Alfred Brendel and Armstrong.[30]
In April 2012,
GENUIN released a CD by Armstrong, Brendel, and Andrej Bielow of piano trios by Haydn, Beethoven, Armstrong and Liszt.[31]
On September 27, 2013,
Sony Music Entertainment released Kit Armstrong's album "Bach, Ligeti, Armstrong". On the CD he presents his own transcriptions of 12
Chorale Preludes by J.S. Bach, his own composition and homage "Fantasy on B-A-C-H", and parts of the Musica ricercata by Ligeti.[32]
In November 2015,
Sony Music Entertainment released "Liszt: Symphonic Scenes", a solo piano CD by Armstrong.[33]
In Byrd & Bull: The Visionaries of Piano Music, a double CD set of works by
William Byrd and
John Bull produced by
Deutsche Grammophon in 2021, Armstrong "presents pieces that were conceived as much more than diversions for an elite or adornments to ritual, span everything from meditative elegies and rousing marches to virtuoso variations on popular melodies and Bull's ingenious canons."[37] The publication was met with critical acclaim from
BBC Music and
The Times among others, in addition to the winning the year-end awards Top 10 Classical Recordings of the Year and Critics' Choice by Presto Music and
Gramophone, respectively.[38][39][40][41]
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^"Leonard Bernstein".
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