Polymath pianist and former child prodigy Kit Armstrong on being more than a performer – he’s teaching music appreciation to artificial intelligence
- Kit Armstrong was composing music at 5, a science undergraduate at 10, a soloist with top orchestras as a teen and did a master’s in pure maths ‘to unwind’
- Ahead of his piano recital in Hong Kong, he talks about his latest project – teaching music appreciation to AI to prepare it for composing its own tunes
In the accelerated universe that is Kit Armstrong’s life, the 30-year-old former child prodigy who studied at several universities and institutions in the United States and Europe before the age of 12 has hit a stage others might see as a midlife crisis.
“I have experienced lots of wonderful things as a full-time musician since graduating from my science studies in 2012. I will still tour a lot [as a concert pianist], but to be only a performer, selling the same product again and again, it has become less important for me than an overarching idea of what I can do for classical music.”
Ahead of his December 11 piano recital in Hong Kong, the Los Angeles-born Armstrong, who has shared his extraordinary story in numerous press interviews since he was a child, is in Taiwan, his mother’s birthplace, training artificial intelligence to interpret music.
He is working with a team of computer scientists at Taipei’s National Tsing Hua University. Just as humans often begin their appreciation of music through nursery rhymes, the AI prototype is starting its education with “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”.
Many people around the world are teaching computers to compose, to paint and create art in human ways, but most are shallow and inferior to the work of human artists, Armstrong. “With AI, I am focusing on interpretation, not composition. Interpretation means not following rules.
“For human beings, interpretation of music over the last few hundreds of years has to do with a wish to entertain in a way that elevates and makes people think, love and reflect. To teach a machine what it means to do that is difficult. In a sense it is to teach it how to feel,” he says.
Things most find difficult come easily to Armstrong. He was a full-time science undergraduate at Utah State University at 10, began composing music at the age of five, has performed as a piano and organ soloist with top orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic and Leipzig’s Gewandhaus Orchestra, and speaks English, Chinese, French and German fluently.
His mother, May, once told The New York Times that her son decided to do a master’s degree in pure mathematics at the age of 18 “to unwind”.
Armstrong’s natural curiosity and uncanny instinct for the languages of mathematics and music meant that, like Leonardo da Vinci, 18th-century astronomer-musician Caroline Herschel and guitarist Brian May, from Queen, from his childhood onwards he pursued science and the arts in tandem.
AI is rewriting the rules of creativity. Should it be stopped?
It is trendy to incorporate technology in performances and the visual arts, but most attempts are shallow and of poor quality, he says. But, just as the computer eventually managed to beat humans at chess, he believes that AI will one day create exceptional music that humans can appreciate – if it can be taught how to interpret existing musical scores first.
“Knowledge is not made to go backward. My new project is to take what I have seen and learned and what I’m capable of in the field of music and to teach this to a computer. If I don’t do it, someone else will do it. And I hope I’ll do it better,” he says solemnly, in an unidentifiable English accent cultivated through many years of global citizenship.
Looking backward does feature in his musical practice, though. The programme for his upcoming recital at the University of Hong Kong includes works by English Renaissance composers William Byrd and John Bull – two men who helped the world see that music can be beautiful in itself, independent of any meaning, he says. (He made a 2021 album for Deutsche Grammophon featuring pieces by Byrd and Bull.)
And he still lives in the most unusual of homes – a deconsecrated 1920s church in a small town in northern France that he and his mother bought in 2012, when he was 20. Armstrong does not follow any religion, but was drawn to living in a church because of his interest in playing the pipe organ and the history of church music.
Since 2014, he and his mother have been inviting musicians to perform in their home, thus turning the town of Hirson (population 900) into a veritable cultural centre.
Whether it is working with AI or playing 16th century music in a French church, Armstrong’s main motivation is to bring joy, he says.
“I became a professional musician for all intents and purposes because I realised there’s something about it that brought joy to myself and other people. I’ve also had the opportunity to never get set in my ways and do just one thing.
“I wish that for everyone, and I think what I do can encourage more people to just follow their passions.”
“Kit Armstrong in Recital”, Grand Hall, Lee Shau Kee Lecture Centre, Centennial Campus, The University of Hong Kong, December 11, 3pm.