Martin Armiger

It could be said that Mark Armiger enjoyed three distinct careers: one as a performing musician, one as a film and TV composer, and one as a renowned educator. Born in Hitchin, England in 1949, Armiger's family relocated to Australia when he was 16 years old. Already set on pursuing a career in music, he completed a Bachelor of Arts course at Flinders University in Adelaide in 1974, and moved to Melbourne the following year, where he quickly became involved in the city's burgeoning live music scene. Armiger collaborated with Red Symons on the music for the independent movie "Pure S" (1974), even as he devoted the rest of his time to performing with a large succession of local bands including the Toads, pub rockers, the Bleeding Hearts, Flying Tackle, and the High Rise Bombers. Something finally clicked however, when he joined the guitar pop act The Sports. The band released their debut album Reckless in 1975 and quickly became favorites on the Australian charts. They released a total of five hit studio albums over the following five years, culminating in 1981's Sondra. The group disbanded shortly thereafter, and Armiger took the opportunity to switch gears, returning to screen composition as the musical director for the Australian TV series "Sweet and Sour" (ABC, 1984). Though he paused to compose the stage musical "Illusion" for the Adelaide Festival of the Arts in 1986, Armiger would remain an in-demand film and TV composer for the following three decades. He composed the music for the TV series "Stringer" in 1987 and produced the hit accompanying soundtrack album You've Always Got the Blues, but he made even more waves the following year as the composer for the film "Young Einstein" (1988), which proved to be a surprise international hit. Armiger found no shortage of projects over the coming decades, composing the score for the series "Seven Deadly Sins" (ABC, 1993) as well as the iconic theme music for the detective TV movie series "Cody" (Seven, 1994-96). And while the new millennium found the composer penning music for films like "Introducing the Dwights" (2007), it also saw him begin a new chapter of his professional life. Beginning in 2004, Armiger became the head of screen composition at the Australian Film Television and Radio School where he coordinated and taught the college's specialist course in screen composition. Sadly, Armiger passed away in 2019. He was 70 years old.