Originally from the rural town of Sonoma (not far from Rohnert Park), Armstrong is a junior at Walnut Hill School in Massachusetts, a private boarding-school for the arts that focuses on music, theater, ballet, modern dance, creative writing, and the visual arts. Renowned as one of the best “finishing schools” for artistically oriented kids, the school, located about 25 minutes south of Boston, attracts students from all over the world.

Armstrong is a long way from home, but he says that living in the Boston area, surrounded by like-minded students—more than 25 of them are also violinists—is a good experience, though much different from Northern California.

“The richness of the culture at Walnut Hill is really powerful,” he says. “It’s interesting that the international students, a lot of them, end up adopting the attitudes of the culture here, which is a mix of East Coast attitude and a kind of high-school-artist attitude.

“It’s a very high-charged energy around here.”

Of course, the Boston area affords many cultural opportunities. “Musically, there is a lot more going on here, in general,” he says. “A lot of interesting things are happening in Boston.”

He visits the city at least twice a week for chamber-music coaching, and is frequently able to attend concerts in his spare time, of which he doesn’t have much.

And that’s how he likes it.

With so many performances at school and a number of auditions lined up, his primary priority is to develop a strong repertoire of audition pieces, all while continuing to hone his musical chops, and work on his own compositions.

“The coolest thing I’m doing right now is my own music,” he says. “I really enjoy creating.”

Occasionally, Armstrong even manages to have a little non-musical fun, though there are those who might challenge his definition of the word “fun.” When not practicing the violin, he enjoys studying world-philosophy and the occasional European novel (he’s recently been reading the works of the French philosopher Voltaire and just finished novelist Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose). He is fond of playing logic games such as chess, Go, and the Chinese variants of Go.

As for sports, all things considered, soccer is his favorite game.

“I’m not very good at soccer,” he allows, with a laugh, “but I like playing soccer anyway. I like that it’s a team sport, and involves thinking as a unit rather than as a single person. I think it’s important for a musician to develop different interests, to create a life aside from music. Influenced by music, yes, but not focused only on music.”

Laughing, he adds, “I don’t really know how to do that, but I do think it’s a good idea.”