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Craig ArmstrongThis Love
Armstrong's score for William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet earned him a BAFTA for Achievement in Film Music and an Ivor Novello. His composition for Baz Luhrmann’s musical Moulin Rouge! 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. Armstrong studied musical composition, violin (with Cornelius Cardew) and piano at the Royal Academy of Music from 1977 to 1981, where he was awarded the Charles Lucas prize and the Harvey Lohr scholarship for composition. He was also awarded the FTCL Fellowship in composition, and 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. Between 1994–2002 he was commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company to write music for Broken Heart and The Tempest, both directed by Michael Boyd. In 2001 Armstrong received a BAFTA, Golden Globe, American Film Institute Award, World Soundtrack Award and 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 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 artists, including U2, Madonna, Luciano Pavarotti, and Massive Attack. 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 ‘5:15 - Opera’s made in Scotland’,
a 15min opera with a libretto by Ian Rankin. Armstrong was appointed Officer of the Order of
the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 New Year Honours.[3][4] 1994: Slow Movement (strings) [edit] Recordings Over the last decade 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 for EMI Classics with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. It was released in 2008 and includes a violin concerto ‘Immer’ for Clio Gould. In 2008 Armstrong released on EMI Classics his first classical album, Memory Takes My Hand, featuring a violin concerto 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 1998: The Space Between Us [edit] Film scores Armstrong's score for Baz Luhrmann’s groundbreaking
musical Moulin Rouge! earned him AFI’s Composer of the Year award,
a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score of the Year and a
BAFTA for Achievement in Film Music. His score for Phillip Noyce’s
The Quiet American garnered him the Ivor Novello Award for Best
Original Film Score. His other feature film scoring credits include
the Oliver Stone drama World Trade Center, the Oscar-winning bio-pic
Ray for which Armstrong was awarded a Grammy Award for Best Original
Score and the worldwide ensemble comedy smash Love Actually. His
scores can also be heard in The Magdalene Sisters, Kiss of the
Dragon, The Bone Collector, The Clearing, Best Laid Plans, Orphans,
Elizabeth: The Golden Age and most recently Louis Leterrier’s Incredible
Hulk. His score to William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (again
with Baz Luhrmann) also earned him a BAFTA for Achievement in Film
Music and an Ivor Novello. One of the most popular tracks composed by Armstrong
is "Escape" from Plunkett & Macleane.[5] The composition is frequently used on TV, film trailers, and in
sports, since it is a rising crescendo type of music with an epic
choir. It appears on the BBC television programme Top Gear as the
music which usually plays at the end of the "epic challenges". Armstrong lists the songs Top Gear has used on his web site.[6] "Escape" has been used in the trailer for a number of action films, including Spider-Man
2 and Daredevil.[7] The piece is also used as entrance music by
various sports teams, including the professional wrestling stable
Team Vision, Premier League football team Aston Villa when playing
at their home ground Villa Park, fellow Premier League team Wigan
Athletic when at the DW Stadium, the England rugby union team as
they enter Twickenham stadium, and Premiership rugby union team
Leeds Carnegie before home games. 1996: Romeo + Juliet - BAFTA and Ivor Novello
awards.
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