Quick, which classical pianist has a staggering whirlwind technique, studies advanced mathematics, has composed a symphony and numerous chamber works, makes his own bow ties and appeared last month on The Late Show With David Letterman?
The answer is Kit Armstrong, who is all of 13 years old.
The remarkable young musician will return to Fort Lauderdale on Monday night for a recital at the Broward Center, presented by the Miami International Piano Festival.
Even the word "prodigy" is sufficient to send audience members who are not immediate relatives streaming for the exits and guests bolting their host's living room in anticipation of some overdrilled, maladroit assault on Beethoven or Chopin.
Yet Armstrong is the real thing. His technical gifts are as astonishing as his intellectual precocity. Currently enrolled in college at London's prestigious Royal Academy of Music, he is also auditing classes in advanced geometry and physics at the Imperial College.
Yet the diminutive Armstrong is unfazed by attending advanced technical university with students nearly a decade his senior. "I've gotten used to it actually," he said, speaking from his home in London where he lives with his mother, May. "I don't think it's such a dramatic situation."
The pianist comes across as an unaffected young man, although one more formal and well spoken than most contemporaries.
His Broward program is a daunting one. Armstrong will lead off with Bach's Prelude & Fugue in F sharp minor from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II, Mozart's Sonata in D Major, K. 284 and Debussy's Images, Book I. Following intermission he will tackle Beethoven's Sonata No. 29, and the Ballade No. 3 and Op. 59 Mazurkas of Chopin.
For all his musical gifts, Armstrong came to music at 5 not from hearing it but by becoming intrigued with the visual score. The order, structure and organization of its lines and notes were mesmerizing.
"I somehow got fascinated by musical notation," he recalled. "I started composing. And, obviously, I didn't know anything about music -- none of my family is musical."
"So first I wrote down all those notes, probably not even knowing they had anything to do with sound. And then somehow I got into the piano so I could hear the notes I was writing. And from then on, it just grew exponentially."
His mother is a Taiwan-born biochemist turned statistician and former Wall Street trader. "It manifested itself when he was very young," she said of Kit's early musical talent. "I knew not long after he was born that I had a big job in front of me."
Armstrong describes his compositional style as "not exactly avant-garde but not old and outdated either. It combines a bit of everything; I try not to be narrow-minded."
At age 7, he composed a symphony, the first movement of which was performed by Carl St. Clair and the Pacific Symphony. Among his completed output are a piano concerto, cello concerto, piano quintet, piano quartet, wind quintet and 12 piano works. He is currently working on a fourth string quartet.
"Of course, some of them, in my opinion, are better than others," he said. "I really like my Piano Quintet, because I feel that things just went right when I composed that. Other pieces I feel I could have done better."
Though his taste in performing repertoire tends toward Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, Armstrong is an adventurous listener. He has found great interest in the orchestral works of George Benjamin and Gyoergy Ligeti, particularly the latter's Atmospheres and Lontana.
In addition to his studies and practicing three hours a day, Armstrong's favored pastimes include skiing, tennis, origami and playing pool. He has created his own Web site (geocities.com/kitcarmstrong). Kit also recently took up juggling.
Yet for all the attention his piano playing has brought, the young musician remains undecided about whether he wants to pursue a career in music or physics. "I don't think they're mutually exclusive in any way," he said.
"I believe that, in the end, everything is mathematics. Nothing would really be possible without mathematical and logical concepts."
Lawrence A. Johnson can be reached at ljohnson@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4708.
