Career As Pianist
Since Armstrong's debut with the Long Beach Bach Festival Orchestra at the age of 8, he has appeared as soloist with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, the NDR Symphony Orchestra in Hamburg, the Bamberger Symphoniker, l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Mozarteum Orchestra of Salzburg, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, among others. He has collaborated with conductors including Ivor Bolton, Riccardo Chailly, Thomas Dausgaard, Christoph von Dohnányi, Manfred Honeck, Sir Charles Mackerras, Bobby McFerrin, Kent Nagano, and Jonathan Nott. a Solo piano recitals have taken Armstrong to London, Paris, Vienna, Florence, Venice, Baden-Baden, Berlin, Dortmund, Leipzig, Munich, Zurich, Geneva, Bolzano, Verbier, La Roque d’Anthéron and various cities in the United States. In June 2003, Armstrong was invited to play at the Carnegie Hall to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Steinway & Sons. Among his recital projects in 2010 was a programme including etudes by Chopin and Ligeti, and J. S. Bach’s Inventions and Sinfoniae. In 2011, in honour of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Franz Liszt, Armstrong played a series of recitals featuring works by Bach and Liszt, including a concert on Liszt’s 1862 Bechstein piano in Nike Wagner’s festival Pelerinages.
Chamber music is one of Armstrong’s central interests. He performs with the Szymanowski String Quartet and in a piano trio with Andrej Bielow (violin) and Adrian Brendel (cello), and has given a lieder recital with Andreas Wolf.
The Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival awarded Armstrong the 2010 Leonard Bernstein Award. In 2011 he received the Förderpreis für Musik from the Kurt-Alten-Stiftung.
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