Richard Armstrong has a long history with Peter Maxwell Davies' unique theater piece Eight Songs for a Mad King; he designed and built the set for the 1969 premiere in London with soloist Roy Hart, performed extracts in Banff in the 90’s before singing the entire piece in Vancouver in 2002. This interview was filmed at the 2015 Butler University ArtsFest production, filmed by PBS Indianapolis, with vocal coaching by Jonathan Hart.
The Butterfly Project is a series of 3 films that nest, matrushka-like, one inside the next. The Former Mrs. Butterfly: a Dialogue on voice intercuts fiction with documentary to explore the idea of finding, or freeing, voice. Fides Krucker and Richard Armstrong are real-life friends, singers and teachers. The documentary goes behind the scenes of the shooting of a fictional film, Opening Night, in which Fides and Richard play a singer and her estranged husband/director. Additionally, a music video, From an Opera About Divorce, was edited from of the material. Both the short drama and the music video are currently viewable on youtube. The documentary is 36 min. 2002.