(Fortepiano by Conrad Graf)

With such multifaceted talent, some artists might feel spoilt for choice; others cherish them as a gift. Kit Armstrong started playing the piano when he was five and soon proved to be a true Wunderkind; at the same time, he displayed an outstanding ability in maths and science. He was the youngest university student in California, enrolled in the natural sciences; he went on to study music in London and pure mathematics in Paris. He also started to compose, and in the small French town of Hirson he acquired an art deco church in which he gives recitals; furthermore, Armstrong loves to cook and is an adept of the art of origami. At one point, even the piano was not enough: now he is likewise fascinated by the organ and by historical keyboard instruments. Thus he has made appearances with period performance specialists including the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. Armstrong is hailed far and wide for his clearly articulated touch, his lively phrasing, and his incisive playing. Historical keyboards are no casual pastime for him; rather, they form part of his quest for the ideal timbre. His mentor Alfred Brendel has referred to him as an “artist of the century”; Armstrong views himself first and foremost as a musician, and only then as a pianist. “A musician deals with imagined sonorities, with ideas that have not yet been embodied – and the pianist makes something out of that at the piano”. For his two recitals at the Festival, Kit Armstrong has selected the Moonlight Sonata and the late sonata in E Major op. 109, pairing them with the Great Sonata in B Flat Major op. 106, called the “Hammerklavier”. The latter makes greater demands in terms of sonority because Beethoven had acquired a new instrument from the Broadwood firm in London, a fortepiano that was far superior to former Viennese instruments in terms of volume and keyboard range. Kit Armstrong will perform on fortepianos from the collection of Edwin Beunk, a Dutch instrument collector specialized in the restoration of historical keyboard instruments.