Kit Armstrong
Zeitreisen ('Time Travels')
Alfred Brendel described Kit Armstrong as 'the greatest talent I have ever encountered'.
The world-famous pianist and composer Kit Armstrong says that 'music allows me to travel through time and space'. That is why his concerts always seem to end up being journeys through time and various eras in music history, in the course of which he weaves fine, connecting threads from the 15th century to the present.
Together with Inge Kloepfer, the author of the book Kit Amstrong – Metamorphosen eines Wunderkinds, he goes on one of his extraordinary journeys back through time, which hardly anyone else does as masterful as he does, during a talk and concert, where he will play the Schinkel Church's recently restored Sauer organ and the piano. He has chosen works and composers for this evening that have been of particular importance in his life.
In addition to works by Johann Sebastian Bach, William Byrd, Charles-Marie Widor and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the programme includes the world premiere of his own composition for piano as well as one of the most important organ works in history: Franz Liszt's Fantasia and Fugue on the chorale Ad nos, ad salutarem undam. The premiere of this unusually symphonic and extremely virtuoso organ work in Merseburg Cathedral in 1855 was a musical sensation and a celebrated social event.
The star pianist and organist will not only talk about the works and their latent connections, but also about stations along his extremely unusual career path as an exceptional talent. Kit Armstrong has performed on stage ever since he was eight years old. However, classical music has always been just one of his great passions. The other is natural sciences, and currently, his own research project in the area of artificial intelligence.
