9th International FRANZ LISZT Piano Competition Weimar – Bayreuth
A very special guest opens the 9th International FRANZ LISZT Piano Competition Weimar-Bayreuth this year: It is the shooting star Kit Armstrong who began his career as a student of pianist legend Alfred Brendel. Brendel had “discovered” the gifted young American piano virtuoso in 2005, taken him under his wing and taught him privately in London for years. Today Armstrong is one of the most sought-after musicians of his generation and performs in the world’s major concert halls.
Not only does it honor the American born in Los Angeles in 1992 that he plays in the current concert season with the Vienna Philharmonic under Blomstedt, the Staatskapelle Dresden under Thielemann and the NHK Symphony Orchestra under Hirokami, or that he plays solo in the Berlin Philharmonic, in Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, and London’s Wigmore Hall. Kit Armstrong is also very successful as a composer. He is relocated by the “Edition Peters”.
In the 2017/18 season, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin will premiere its concert for percussion and orchestra under Gerassimez. The renowned Armida Quartet and clarinetist Matthias Schorn will perform for the first time a new Clarinet Quintet by Armstrong. Further composition commissions are available to the artist from the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Movimentos Festival and the Philharmonic Orchestra Kiel.
Kit Armstrong’s artistic career took him from the US to Europe where he studied music at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Already at the age of seven, he began parallel to a scientific degree in Pennsylvania, later in the UK. He finally earned a master’s degree in mathematics from Paris University VI. His mentor, Alfred Brendel, once said of this brilliant spirit: “He has an understanding of the great piano works that are at the same time fresh and subtle, emotional and intellectual.”
The Program
Franz Liszt: Fantasie und Fuge g-Moll BWV 542, arrangiert für Klavier
Franz Liszt: Fantasie und Fuge über B-A-C-H S 529 (Bearbeitung für Klavier)
Franz Liszt: Historische ungarische Bildnisse S 205
Nr. 1 Stephan Széchenyi
Nr. 6 Alexander Petõfi
Nr. 4 Ladislaus Teleki
Franz Liszt: Le Triomphe funèbre du Tasse S 517
Franz Liszt: 3 Valses oubliées S 215
Franz Liszt: l’introduction à La Légende de sainte Elisabeth S 2
Franz Liszt: Sarabande und Chaconne aus Händels Oper ‘Almira’ S 181
Further information
Admission: 19:30
Organizer: Hochschule für Musik FRANZ LISZT Weimar in cooperation with the town of Bayreuth
All information subject to change.
