LA-born polymath Kit Armstrong proved a formidable force on the keys at his Debut Recital at the Victoria Concert Hall in Singapore on 3rd June 2022. The programme featured Bach’s 15 Sinfonias, BWV 787-801, and Liszt’s Transcendental Études, S. 139, said to be designed to be the peak of piano difficulty. 

 

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The added personal touches to the program made the experience a very interesting and engaging one for us, as Armstrong opened the show with, and sprinkled throughout, food for thought with poignant discussion: “Why Classical Music?”, and the value it holds, or has the potential to hold, for modern audiences; How do we appreciate music? What is it that is universal about music?

 

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The masterfully selected repertoire for the evening not only fully demonstrated Kit’s prowess on the instrument, they also allowed him to fully paint a picture on his thoughts and understanding of each movement, each variation and theme, giving the audience the means to ponder, and, in his words, go past the idea of venerating music as an artifact, to transcend, to move beyond and arrive in a mindset where we are actively engaging in finding answers to what it is in the music that speaks to us, that gives us the meaning and value we perceive. 

 

 

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For example, Armstrong shared with the audience the origins of Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes, and Bach’s Sinfonias, and other compositions, and relates them to the meaning of the word “transcendental”, to go beyond the initial existence. What began as repetitive movements across the keys, over time are transformed, technical elements are taken and shaped and molded into expressions, embodiments of thought and emotion painted in sound. Music in essence is sound. It is meant to be experienced, to be felt as a physical phenomenon, to be appreciated by the senses.

Armstrong’s Singapore debut “Transcendental” inspired not only awe at his exceptional playing, musical maturity and youthful daring, and exquisite expressive ability, but ultimately a renewed appreciation for Music as a whole – as a window to the past, as a monument to culture and history, and as an inward message, one uniquely treasured in our own heart and soul. Kit Armstrong is an absolute must-see.