I am very happy to share that my album with Katharine Dain “Regards sur l’Infini” has won the Edison award in “Het Debut” category. It is a huge honour to receive this prestigious award and we are in awe of the other winners who include Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Lise Davidsen, Sandrine Piau and Capella Amsterdam/Daniel Reuss.
Read MoreKatharine Dain and I are thrilled to have been nominated for the Edison Klassiek award in the debut category for our recent CD: Regards sur l’Infini. In the jury motivation explanation they described it as “a debut album that hit like a bomb.”
Read MoreThe CD that I made with soprano during lockdown has been released on November 27th. We are very happy that it has been received so enthusiastically by the press and are thrilled that it has been chosen by the Guardian as classical album of the week:
Read MoreHello! I hope everyone is safe and healthy. I am in the midst of completing a recordijng project with the soprano Katharine Dain. The project has strangely been more possible than it would have been normally, because of the time available to rehearse and explore this very challenging music. The result is “Regards sur l’Infini”, a programme of French songs by Debussy, Messiaen, Claire Delbos, Henri Dutilleux and Kaija Saariaho.
Read MoreHello! I hope everybody is as well as possible under the current circumstances. All scheduled concerts have been suspended since mid-March. However, I am relatively fortunate that many of my concerts have been rescheduled into 2021, although not all.
Read MoreSam is honoured to have been interviewed by Dutch music magazine De Nieuwe Muze, alongside such musicians as Gordan Nikolic, Gabriela Montero and Anne Queffélec. Click read more to view the article.
Read MoreSam gave two recitals in Germany in Rysum and Bremen. The first was reviewed by the Ostfriesland Presse who wrote "at this early point in time, it became clear to the audience why Sam Armstrong enjoys such international significance as a pianist". (Bereits zu diesem frühen Zeitpunkt wurde dem Publikum deutlich, warum Sam Armstrong international Eine so große Bedeutung als Pianist genießt.)
Read MoreSam will perform two monumental contemporary works with soloists from the Royal Northern Sinfonia: Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time and Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen's hour-long Schnee, quickly becoming a staple of the modern repertory. The concert is in Newcastle's Sage Gateshead on 17 January; details here.
Read MoreThis season, Sam will play several recitals of Debussy's Preludes Book I throughout Germany in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the composer's death.
Read MoreSam appears this week live on BBC Radio 3's In Tune. He and violinist Emily Sun, in preparation for their recital together at Manchester's Bridgewater Hall, will be interviewed by Sean Rafferty and will perform a short set together in the studio.
Read MoreSam is looking forward to joining the musicians of Romania's dynamic new Vibrate!Festival for performances of Tchaikovsky, Fauré, and Lipatti between 15-18 June.
Read MoreSam will perform live in the BBC Radio 3's Music and Words with members of the Royal Northern Sinfonia in an eclectic programme including works of Satie, Britten, Gershwin, Charles Ives, Schubert, and Bloch.
Read MoreSam will play a program including the Brahms Piano Quartet No. 1 with soloists from the Royal Northern Sinfonia in Sage Gateshead, Wednesday 21 September.
Read MoreSam is looking forward to joining the Egmont Ensemble on an extensive upcoming New Zealand tour, with concerts from 2-21 November, presented by the Royal Overseas League.
Read MoreSam was praised by Arts Desk as a "pianist of splendid originality" after his recent performance with the Egmont Ensemble in Wigmore Hall. David Nice called the artists "all so inclined to mature introspection that they certainly don’t need the epithet “promising”; everything is already here, with nothing obvious to add and only a fear for the loss of a certain perfection." Read the complete review here.
Read MoreSam received an outstanding review of his Wigmore Hall solo recital from Musical Opinion:
"Sam Armstrong's programme at Wigmore Hall on July 1 would have challenged any artist, and it is a tribute to the quality of this young pianist that he emerged triumphant. ... Armstrong's credentials are impressive, but it is as an interpretive musician that he made the bigger impact: any pianist who could plan and bring off a programme such as this clearly is one to watch, and those of the pianistic cognoscenti who attended this recital will need no second bidding to follow his future career with great interest."
Read MoreSam's debut recital in the Wigmore Hall was enthusiastically reviewed in International Piano's July/August 2011 issue:
"The same can be said for the young British pianist Sam Armstrong, whose recital – sponsored by the Kirckman Society – revealed him to be a major new talent. I have never heard so persuasive an account of Berg’s Sonata Op 1 as his, and the spells he wove with Debussy’s Etudes, Book II and L’isle joyeuse were gloriously subtle; elsewhere, Brahms’ Sonata No 3 in F minor was infused with drama and beautifully controlled. What a pleasure, too, to have an encore that broke the mould – in the form of a dizzy elaboration of Embraceable You that exuded both Broadway charm and the joy of unbuttoned virtuosity."
Read MoreThe Financial Times mentioned Sam in a review of up-and-coming talents: "All young, all wonderful. The future of concert pianism is in good hands."
Read More"easily the best chamber concert of the year"
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