Bayreuth is not only the city of Richard Wagner, but also of Franz Liszt. Furthermore it’s the home of the piano manufacturer Steingraeber & Söhne, the promoter of the Piano Festival Bayreuth. Described by the New York Times as a “brilliant pianist” who combines “musical maturity and youthful daring in his exceptional playing”, Kit Armstrong performs at the Margravial Opera House, a unique monument of 18th-century music culture. It was inscribed by UNESCO in the list of World Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2012.

Born in 1992 in Los Angeles, Armstrong studied at the Curtis Institute of Music and at the Royal Academy of Music in London. At 7, he started studying composition at Chapman University and physics at California State University, later also chemistry and mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania and mathematics at the Imperial College London. He earned a master’s degree in pure mathematics at the University of Paris VI. Alfred Brendel, who has guided Armstrong as teacher and mentor since 2005, ascribes to him “an understanding of the great piano works that combines freshness and subtlety, emotion and intellect”.

Richard Wagner
Piano Sonata in A flat major (for M. Wesendonck), WWV 85

Franz Liszt
Au bord d’une source

Sonnet No. 123
(Three Sonnets of Petrarch)

Aux cyprès de la Villa d’Este

Les jeux d’eaux

Piano Sonata in B minor

Transcription from
Mozart’s “Ave verum corpus motet”

W.A. Mozart
Fantasy in C minor, K. 475

Suite in C major, K. 399 - Allemande