Craig Armstrong

Craig Armstrong, the Grammy-winning composer whose cinematic compositions are most familiar thanks to repeated partnerships with filmmaker Baz Luhrmann, has simultaneously functioned as producer and supporting musician, penned works for live concert settings, and shaped independent recordings that fuse pop, orchestral, and electronic textures. He first entered television scoring during the late 1980s, then began his initial association with the Royal Shakespeare Company in the mid-1990s before issuing his wide-ranging solo debut, The Space Between Us, in 1998. During the same period he supplied music for Luhrmann’s 1996 adaptation of Romeo + Juliet and later rejoined the director for the 2001 production Moulin Rouge. Several years afterward Armstrong received a Grammy for his score to the 2004 Ray Charles biographical film Ray and entered the Marvel Cinematic Universe with his work on the 2008 release The Incredible Hulk. Following another collaboration with Luhrmann on the 2013 adaptation The Great Gatsby, he scored the 2016 sequel Bridget Jones’s Baby. Into the subsequent decade his credits encompassed literary adaptations such as the screen version of Tim Winton’s Dirt Music and the 2021 film The Most Reluctant Convert, centered on author C.S. Lewis.

Born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1959, Armstrong pursued studies in composition, piano, and violin at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Upon completing his degree in 1981 he earned the Arts Council GLAA Young Jazz Musician of the Year award the following year. He toured with Ultravox’s Midge Ure in 1985 and performed piano on Ure’s recordings, among them the 1988 album Answers to Nothing. Also in 1988 he wrote the score for the Scottish Television miniseries Winners and Losers.

Throughout the 1990s he continued balancing assignments across varied formats, supplying music for several Royal Shakespeare Company productions beginning in 1994, the same year Massive Attack’s album Protection appeared. That release contained Armstrong’s arrangements, conducting, songwriting contributions, and piano work. He additionally finished a string composition titled Slow Movement that year. Returning to television, he created score music for multiple 1996 episodes of the drama London Bridge.

Melankolic, the label associated with Massive Attack, issued Armstrong’s solo debut The Space Between Us in 1998. The album reworked the track “Weather Storm” from Protection and featured guest appearances by Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser and the Blue Nile’s Paul Buchanan. He made his first feature-film scoring credit that year as principal composer for Orphans. Armstrong’s string arrangements also appeared on Madonna’s 1998 album Ray of Light. By the close of the decade he had worked with prominent artists including U2, Hole, the Spice Girls, the London Suede, and Tina Turner, along with numerous others. His screen work during this time included the 1999 Denzel Washington thriller The Bone Collector, drawn from the popular novel.

As demand for his film scores grew, Armstrong reunited with Luhrmann for the 2001 musical Moulin Rouge. He captured both the BAFTA and Golden Globe for best score for that project. His second solo album, As If to Nothing, emerged on Melankolic in 2002 and included contributions from Bono, the Lemonheads’ Evan Dando, the atmospheric rock band Mogwai, and electronic artist Photek. After scoring the 2002 film The Quiet American and 2003’s Love, Actually, he earned another BAFTA nomination for 2004’s Ray, which ultimately won the Grammy for Best Score Soundtrack Album for Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.

Armstrong’s 2004 solo-piano release Piano Works assembled selections drawn from his various soundtracks. The following year he delivered The Dolls, an experimental electronic collaboration with vocalist and producer Antye Greie and percussionist and producer Vladislav Delay. Remaining active in scoring, he composed for 2005’s Must Love Dogs, 2006’s World Trade Center, and 2007’s Elizabeth: The Golden Age. In 2008 he wrote the music for the Marvel feature The Incredible Hulk and released his fourth solo album, Memory Takes My Hand. Issued on EMI Classics, the classical recording presented a violin concerto composed for Clio Gould of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Armstrong received an OBE appointment in 2010 in recognition of his musical achievements.

His 2010 film scores encompassed the Oliver Stone sequel Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and the coming-of-age drama Neds. Armstrong’s first opera, The Lady from the Sea, received its premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2012. The soundtrack he created for Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 adaptation The Great Gatsby earned him a second Grammy nomination. His 2014 solo album It’s Nearly Tomorrow contained seventeen tracks, eleven of them instrumental, and reunited him with guests such as Paul Buchanan and Vladislav Delay while also featuring trumpeter Chris Botti.

During 2015 Armstrong supplied scores for Far from the Madding Crowd and Victor Frankenstein. The following year his music accompanied the biographical film Snowden and the romantic comedy Bridget Jones’s Baby. In 2018 he issued the sixteen minimalist compositions that comprise Sun on You, performed on piano with accompaniment from the Scottish Ensemble. He returned to theaters in 2019 with Mrs. Lowry & Son, The Burnt Orange Heresy (which co-starred Mick Jagger), and Dirt Music, adapted from the Tim Winton novel. The 2020 screen version of the Newbery Medal-winning children’s book The One and Only Ivan followed. Armstrong next scored the C.S. Lewis biographical drama The Most Reluctant Convert, released in 2021. That same year Modern Recordings issued Nocturnes: Music for 2 Pianos, material he had composed during 2020 and early 2021.