Kit Armstrong

Kit Armstrong is a 17-year old pianist and composer who also displays remarkable gifts for mathematics, science, and languages. At the age of five, he began formal composition and piano studies. At seven, he became the youngest scholarship student in the history of Chapman University in California, attending the university part-time while completing high school. Two years later, he became a full-time undergraduate student, studying music and science. He currently studies piano with Alfred Brendel and Benjamin Kaplan. Whilst attending college, Kit has given recitals and appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras, having made his concerto début at the age of eight. In 2005, he performed Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 1, conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras; in 2007, he played Mozart Piano Concerto No. 20 with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Bobby McFerrin. He will play Bach Concerto in D Minor and Schumann Concerto in A Minor with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Chailly in 2009 and 2010.

Kit’s piano repertoire encompasses a wide range of composers; it includes all 48 Preludes and Fugues from the Well-Tempered Clavier and the Two-Part and Three-Part Inventions by Bach, all 18 Mozart Piano Sonatas, 15 Beethoven Piano Sonatas, as well as works by Haydn, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, Debussy, and Ravel. His concerto repertoire includes works by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schumann, and Bartók.

As a composer, Kit has written in various styles. His compositions include numerous pieces for solo piano, a viola sonata, three string quartets, two piano quintets, wind quintet, a piano concerto, and a symphony. This symphony, Celebration, composed at the age of seven, was premièred by the Pacific Symphony Orchestra. In addition to winning a number of state competitions, he has been awarded the Morton Gould Young Composer Award for five consecutive years. In 2007, Struwwelpeter, a suite for viola and piano, won the prestigious Charlotte V. Bergen Scholarship.