Callum Armstrong

Callum Armstrong started playing the highland pipes at the age of 16. From then onwards music became the big passion in his life and he was fortunate to be taught by supportive music teachers. After school he studied music at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in Greenwich, London. While at the Conservatoire he was awarded the Silver Medal for Early Music in 2013 and for three consecutive years the Beryl Maggs Prize for Recorder.

Once he left the Conservatoire, he began his career as a self-employed musician and composer, working in a wide variety of different musical fields. This musical journey has led him to many exciting areas as a performer, teacher and instrument maker. As a performer he works as a soloist, in duos like the Branschke Armstrong Duo, and ensembles like Concerto Caledonia and The Savage Prunes. He has also performed in theatre productions such as the Suppliant Woman, which toured around the UK and to Hong Kong.

His most recent and unexpected fascination has been involved with reviving the Ancient Greek aulos – a double pipe played by the Greeks and Romans between 2500 and 0 BC. Several of these instruments have survived but none of them have reeds, which provides him with the exciting challenge of developing reeds to work in reconstructions of these pipes. This use of the aulos was most notably featured in Ludwig Göransson's score for Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey.