Craig Armstrong to premiere celebrated scores for festival

By Patrick Luce Oct 10, 2006, 15:44 GMT

During the 33rd Flanders International Film Festival-Ghent Golden Globe winning composer and musician Craig Armstrong will perform a unique film concert at the Flemish Opera house. For the first time ever the music Armstrong composed for "Romeo and Juliet," "Moulin Rouge," and "Ray" will be played by a symphonic orchestra assisted by a choir and Armstrong on the piano. Craig Armstrong, the concert: Thursday Oct 19th, 8pm at the Flemish Opera House in Ghent. Tickets are on sale now at the Flemish Opera House.

This concert will follow the concert debut of Armstrong's score for Oliver Stone's controversial film for Paramount Pictures "World Trade Center." Armstrong conducts over 100 of Hollywood's top musicians and singers on stage for an exciting gala event and concert program on Saturday, October 7th at 8 p.m. at Royce Hall, on the UCLA campus.

Only five years ago Craig Armstrong was honored by the World Soundtrack Academy as the first WSA Discovery of the Year. In the meantime Armstrong's work in film has resulted in numerous awards. Most recently he received a Grammy for Taylor Hackford's biopic "Ray." For Baz Luhrmann's "Romeo and Juliet" he won a Bafta and for "Moulin Rouge" by the same director he was awarded a prestigious Golden Globe, a Bafta and an American Film Institute Award.

Royal Academy of Music graduate Craig Armstrong passed through the ranks of his native Scotland's band culture to become a respected and sought-after composer and arranger on the world stage. In the contemporary field, Madonna, U2, Björk and Massive Attack are among the acts to have benefited from his talents, but it is his scores for "Ray," "The Clearing," "The Quiet American," "The Bone Collector," and Baz Luhrmann's "Romeo & Juliet" and "Moulin Rouge" that have brought him to the forefront of the movie industry.

The 33rd edition of the Flanders International Film Festival-Ghent is scheduled for October 11th-21st, 2006. Once again "The impact of music on film" is the overall theme. More than 200 films will be shown at Kinepolis Gent, Capitole, Sphinx, Studio Skoop and Arts Centre Vooruit