Craig Armstrong is a Scottish born composer. Through his orchestral writing, electronic music and wide-ranging artistic collaborations in classical and film music, Craig Armstrong’s distinct compositional voice has received worldwide acclaim.
Early recording work of Armstrong’s began with the long standing and inventive collaboration with Massive Attack on their seminal albums. Armstrong’s first solo albums were released on Massive Attack’s label Melankolic (Virgin Records), The Space Between Us and As If To Nothing. The stunning and pared back Piano Works and Piano Works: The Film followed with a release on Sanctuary in 2004. Memory Takes My Hand was released on EMI Classics in 2008 featuring the violinist Clio Gould and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. It’s Nearly Tomorrow, a solo album with BMG Chrysalis was released in 2014 and featured collaborations with Paul Buchanan and Vladislav Delay. The Lost Song’s Of St Kilda released by Decca in 2016 to worldwide acclaim was a special project featuring two of Craig’s original compositions, Stac Lee Dawn and Dusk, inspired by the original piano works of St Kilda on the recovered recordings. Armstrong’s most recent solo album Sun On You was released with Decca Records in 2018, an album for strings and piano featuring the Scottish Ensemble.
Armstrong has a world-renowned reputation for composing award-winning film music. Having composed scores for both Hollywood and independent films from Peter Mullan’s directorial debut The Close Trilogy to the BAFTA, Ivor Novello and Golden Globe winning award scores for Baz Lurhmann’s Romeo and Juliet and Moulin Rouge!. Many more films have benefited from Armstrong’s music including The Quiet American, Orphans, Love Actually, World Trade Centre, Elizabeth: The Golden Age and Far From The Madding Crowd. Armstrong’s film score for Ray! directed by Taylor Hackford was awarded a Grammy for original score. The long-standing artistic relationship Armstrong has with both Mullan and Lurhmann has continued to present day with work for Peter Mullan on his award winning film Neds and the Grammy score nominated The Great Gatsby for Baz Lurhmann.
In 2018 he completed work on the critically acclaimed Mrs Lowry and Son, directed by Adrian Noble. Armstrong has worked with the director Giuseppe Capotondi for The Burnt Orange Heresy, which was released in 2020 and in 2019 Armstrong was reunited in collaboration with director Thea Sharrock (dir. Me Before You) for her new feature for Disney, The One And Only Ivan.
Photo credit Simon Murphy