Kit Armstrong

Ever since Kit Armstrong entered the global music stage twenty years ago, his activities have exerted an enduring fascination upon music lovers. He performs recitals in major series, appears with the world’s finest orchestras, and has developed close artistic partnerships with leading instrumentalists and vocalists. He has held artist-in-residence appointments incorporating a wide spectrum of musical formats, combining his roles as composer, pianist, conductor, and organist. His project Expedition Mozart, traversing Mozart’s music in various genres with an international group of distinguished chamber musicians and soloists, is a main feature at prestigious festivals and venues.

Armstrong came to classical music through composition at the age of five. He has since created a broad oeuvre of vocal, instrumental, chamber, and symphonic works, many of which have been commissioned by notable European cultural institutions. His compositions are published by Edition Peters.

Armstrong’s piano recordings include the albums Bach, Ligeti, Armstrong (2013) and Liszt: Symphonic Scenes (2016) on Sony Classical, various live recitals on DVD, such as Bach’s Goldberg Variations and its Predecessors at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam (Unitel, 2017), Wagner - Liszt - Mozart at the Bayreuth Margravial Opera House (C-Major, 2019), and 1520-2020: A Musical Odyssey (Damis Films, 2023), a double CD dedicated to a panorama of works by William Byrd and John Bull: The Visionaries of Piano Music (2021) on Deutsche Grammophon, and Mozart’s violin sonatas with Renaud Capuçon (2023).

Born in 1992 in California, USA, Armstrong pursued undergraduate studies in physics at California State University, chemistry and mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania and mathematics at Imperial College London. Alfred Brendel has guided Armstrong as a musical mentor since 2005. In 2008, he earned a bachelor’s degree in music at the Royal Academy of Music, London, and in 2012 a master’s degree in pure mathematics at the University of Paris VI.

In 2012, Kit Armstrong purchased the Church of Sainte-Thérèse in Hirson, France, and transformed it into a hall for concerts and exhibitions, and outreach. This cultural centre has become home to interdisciplinary projects, including the yearly Semaine de la Voix, reaching a regional as well as cosmopolitan public.

At the 2026 festival

Encounter11.28 · 5:00 PM
Celebration!11.29 · 5:00 PM