On the record: Interview with Maestro Nick Armstrong 

EAGLE: How do you feel right now? This is your last concert as artistic director, what’s this feel like for you?

ARMSTRONG: The obvious answer is bittersweet. This is my family, and I’ve been with them for 32 years. I played with them first. Yeah, so a lot of people weren’t even born yet (laughs) when I started doing this. But they’re amazing, they are a wonderful wonderful group. They’re very dedicated musicians. We rehearse on Monday evenings, and you can’t imagine what it’s like to come out of the first day of work in a week and have to go to rehearsals. Everyone is really committed, and making music is a real privilege for all of us, for me definitely. But, after 30 years, I think it’s good for them and good for me for new blood to come in. They’ll spend next year looking for a new music director, but I won’t be too far away, I’ll be around.

EAGLE: So what are your next steps, what’s on the horizon for you?

ARMSTRONG: Well, I’m a violinist, so I’ve put together a piano trio with the pianist who’s playing today, the principal pianist in the orchestra. We’ve been playing in a trio now for about a year. I also wanted to put together a small string chamber orchestra with some of the string players in the orchestra and some other people I know uptown. I also want to travel, that’s the main thing. I’ve been threatening to move to Europe for years and years and years. My first job was at the opera house in Venice. I fell in love with Venice forty years ago, and I’m still in love with it. I’d love to go back to it, I still have friends there.

EAGLE: Yeah, so I know you sorta city hopped a little bit and then stayed here in Brooklyn for–

ARMSTRONG: 35 years.

EAGLE: 35 years, yeah.

ARMSTRONG: I’m that Brooklynite with the weird accent.

EAGLE: Right! What brought you here and what kept you here?

ARMSTRONG: What brought me to the States was that I met my…