Craig Armstrong (composer)

Armstrong's score for Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet earned him a BAFTA for Achievement in Film Music and an Ivor Novello. He would collaborate with Luhrmann again on his next two films, Moulin Rouge! and The Great Gatsby. His score for the former earned him the 2001 American Film Institute's composer of the Year award, a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score and a BAFTA. Armstrong was awarded a Grammy Award for Best Original Score in 2004 for the biopic Ray. His other feature film scoring credits include Love Actually, Oliver Stone's World Trade Center, Elizabeth: The Golden Age and The Incredible Hulk.

Life and career[edit]

Armstrong was born in Shettleston, Glasgow, Scotland^[1][2]


He studied musical composition, violin and piano at the Royal Academy of Music from 1977 to 1981, where his teachers included Cornelius Cardew and Malcolm MacDonald^[2] He was awarded the Charles Lucas prize and the Harvey Lohr scholarship for composition, the FTCL Fellowship in composition, and also won the GLAA Young Jazz Musician of the Year in 1982. Upon completing his studies, Armstrong served as music and dance specialist at the Strathclyde Regional Council in 1984. In 1985 Armstrong toured with Midge Ure on his Gift World Tour, and with Ultravox on their european U-Vox Tour winter 1986. Between 1994–2002 he was commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company to write music for The Broken Heart and The Tempest, both directed by Michael Boyd.


He sees no difference in credibility between popular and classical forms^[4] and this respect for the pop genre was cemented in 1994 with a one-off collaboration with the Bristol band Massive Attack on their album Protection,^[2] after which the band formed their Melankolic vanity record label releasing his first two solo albums.


In 2001, Armstrong received BAFTA, Golden Globe, and American Film Institute Award, as well as World Soundtrack Award and a Golden Satellite Award for Moulin Rouge!. In 2002 he wrote the meditative piece Visconti, commissioned by Barbican Centre Elektronika festival for the London Sinfonietta. In 2004 Armstrong collaborated with visual artists Dalziel + Scullion on One Minute to celebrate the opening of Perth's Horsecross Hall. In 2005 he received a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack album for the film Ray, directed by Taylor Hackford. In 2008 his first classical release, Memory Takes My Hand, featuring a violin concerto for Clio Gould, was released on EMI Classics. Armstrong has had many collaborations including recording and performing the album Dolls with the Berlin laptop artist AGF and Vladislav Delay. He has worked with a wide variety of more well-known musical artists, including U2, Tina Turner, Madonna, Texas, and Luciano Pavarotti.^[2]


Armstrong has written several classical commissions for the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the London Sinfonietta, the Hebrides Ensemble and the Scottish Ensemble. In 2006, Armstrong collaborated with the visual artists Dalziel + Scullion for the reopening of the Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow with a joint exhibition called Once. In 2007 Armstrong's first opera was premiered as part of the Scottish Opera, titled '5:15 – Opera's made in Scotland', a 15min opera with a libretto by Ian Rankin.

Armstrong has released two solo records on Massive Attack's label Melankolic, followed by Piano Works on Sanctuary in 2004 and Film Works on Universal in 2005. In 2007 Armstrong recorded his first classical record, "Memory Takes My Hand", for EMI Classics with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. It was released in 2008 and includes a violin concerto "Immer" for Clio Gould.


Rosebud was released from a new co written and co produced project of Craig Armstrong and Scott Fraser – Winona. September 2009: "Without You (Deal Soul Brothers Remix)" – Format: 12" Vinyl single