Craig Armstrong

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Craig Armstrong , OBE (born April 29, 1959 in Glasgow ) is a Scottish composer of modern orchestral and film music , often with electronic elements.

biography

Armstrong was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1959. There he was part of the local band culture as a member of the bands Hipsway , Texas and The Big Dish. He enjoyed a solid education in composition and piano at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

In the late 1980s he began his career with classical compositions for the Glasgow Tron Theater , the Scottish Chamber Orchestra , the Scottish National Orchestra (now the Royal Scottish National Orchestra ) and the BT Ensemble . He was the composer and arranger for Madonna , U2 , Björk , Massive Attack and Tina Turner .

In 1984 he was a music and dance specialist with the Strathclyde Regional Council . In 1985 he attended the Gulbenkian course in composition and choreography. In 1990 Armstrong took part in the Glasgow Mayfest with his music theater group Performance .

In 1996 he released his first full score for the film Romeo + Juliet .

In 2017 he was accepted into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), which awards the Oscars every year.

style

Both the soundtracks and his solo albums are characterized by pieces in which electronic sounds meet classical instruments (piano, string orchestra) and their arrangements are partly reminiscent of classical music. In doing so, he often takes up already known topics from work such B. with Massive Attack (Sly) again and processes it into something new. He also brought in a lot of guest musicians, for example on the album As If to Nothing Bono by U2 ( Stay , a U2 cover) or Antye Greie-Ripatti , singer of the German band Laub , who wrote HTML in German for the Waltz piece - and reads JavaScript code.

At first glance, Piano Works is an exception. On this album Armstrong presents piano versions of some of his pop and film compositions, as well as some new pieces. With the style of the production (a lot of reverb, some electronic alienation) Armstrong gives this album a pop flair.

Filmography (selection)

Solo albums

  • 2018: Sun on You
  • 2014: It's Nearly Tomorrow
  • 2008: Memory Takes My Hand
  • 2005: Film Works
  • 2004: Piano Works
  • 2002: As If to Nothing
  • 1998: The Space Between Us

Further guest contributions

  • 2015: Kelvingrove Nils Wülker feat. Craig Armstrong (album "Up")

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Class of 2017. Accessed June 30, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Armstrong, Craig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Scottish musician and composer
DATE OF BIRTH April 29, 1959
PLACE OF BIRTH Glasgow