Lucy Armstrong facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Lucy Armstrong
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| Born | September 2, 1991 |
| Education | University of Bristol, Royal Northern College of Music |
| Occupation | Composer |
Lucy Armstrong (born September 2, 1991) is a talented British composer. She lives in London and creates amazing music. In 2018, she became a special Fellow of Composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. This means she was recognized for her excellent skills in writing music. Currently, she is spending three years working closely with Glyndebourne, a famous opera company.
Lucy has written many different kinds of music. She composed an opera called Nadja's Song. An opera is a play where the story is told mostly through singing. This opera was first performed in Bergen, Norway. Later, it was also shown at the Tête à Tête Opera Festival in London. It even traveled all the way to Bogotá, Colombia!
In 2022, two groups, the Salford Choral Society and The Piccadilly Symphony Orchestra, performed a new piece by Lucy. This piece was about 25 minutes long and featured both a choir and an orchestra. A choir is a group of singers, and an orchestra is a large group of musicians playing instruments. In 2023, the Cambridge Philharmonic asked Lucy to write a new piece for them. They performed it in March 2023.
Lucy also wrote a special piece for the saxophone. It's called a saxophone concerto. A concerto is a piece of music for a solo instrument, like a saxophone, played with an orchestra. Conductor Chloé van Soeterstède and The Arch Sinfonia asked her to write this. Gillian Blair played the alto saxophone when it was first performed in June 2023.
Lucy has composed music for many famous groups and places. These include Psappha, the London Sinfonietta, and Glyndebourne. Her music has been performed in well-known venues like St Martin-in-the-Fields and The Bridgewater Hall. You might have even heard her music on BBC Radio 3! In 2021, she was a special composer for the Royal Philharmonic Society. For this, she wrote a piece for horn and piano for Wigmore Hall.
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Learning to Compose
Lucy Armstrong studied music at The University of Bristol. After that, she went to the Royal Northern College of Music. There, she studied how to compose music from 2013 to 2015. Her teachers were Adam Gorb and Gary Carpenter. In 2015, she won the Alan Rawsthorne Prize for Composition. She was also highly praised in the RNCM Gold Medal competition. Later, in 2017 and 2018, she continued her studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Her teacher there was Julian Philips.
What Lucy Composes
Lucy Armstrong has written many different types of musical pieces. Here are some of her selected works.
Operas
An opera is a play where the story is told through singing, often with costumes and sets.
- Gods of the Game (2022; written with Julian Philips, Aran O'Grady, Abel Esbenshade and Blasio Kavuma)
- A Risk of Lobsters (2018; a smaller opera called a Chamber Opera)
- Tale of the Tell-Tale Tail (2017; Chamber Opera)
- Nadja's Song (2015; Chamber Opera)
- The Library (2014; Chamber Opera)
Music for Choir and Orchestra
These pieces are written for a large group of singers (a choir) and a full orchestra.
- The Alchemical Kitchen (2023; for Chorus and Symphony Orchestra)
- The Gardener (2022; for Chorus and Chamber Orchestra)
Orchestra Music
These are pieces written for a full orchestra.
- Saxophone Concerto (2023; for alto saxophone and chamber orchestra)
Wind Band Music
These pieces are for a band made up of wind instruments (like flutes, clarinets, saxophones) and percussion.
- Life is a Daring Adventure or Nothing (2015; for Wind Band)
- Marine Overture (2012; for Wind Band)
Chamber Music
Chamber music is written for a small group of instruments, usually one player per part.
- Dynamic Corpse (2022; for flute, Bass Clarinet, piano, electric guitar, violin, viola and cello)
- The Executioner's Pond (2019; for clarinet/bass clarinet, piano, percussion, violin, cello and double bass)
- The Whale's Cabaret (2022; for horn and piano)
- The Other Dust (2016; for alto saxophone, tenor saxophone and piano)
- The Singing Fish (2016; for alto saxophone and piano)
- Space Adventure (2015; for percussion and loop pedal)
- SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT (2016; for Saxophone Quartet)
- Attraction (2015; for solo piano)
- DARTH MAHLER (2015; for solo trumpet)
- Melodrama for Saxophone and Piano (2014; for soprano saxophone and piano)
Vocal Music
These pieces are written for singers, sometimes with an instrument like a piano.
- Masculine/Feminine (2015; for baritone voice and piano)
- Cheese! (2015; for a group of eight singers, called a Vocal Octet)
- Interior (2014; for mezzo-soprano voice and piano)
