00:01Music
00:03Music
00:03Music
00:05Music
01:42Thank you, Nicky, Jared, and the orchestra.
01:44You guys are stunning players and so lovely having you.
01:48Hey, what's up?
01:50Good to see you.
01:51Good to see you again.
01:52This time last year, we sat down and talked about a score you did for Paradise.
01:58Yes.
01:59This is a very different score.
02:01How did this one come about?
02:03Thank you for the applause.
02:07How did this one come about?
02:10Annie Weissman, who created this show, reached out to a few people, and I was one of the few
02:18people she reached out to, and we met after reading the script, and I read her story about
02:25these three women who went to college together and ended up staying, they were best friends
02:33through all the years after college.
02:35And in the story, Nancy is killed, and the other two friends are scrambling to sort of figure out
02:44what happened to their best friend.
02:45And after reading that script, I met with her, and she's asked me, like, what do you, this is a
02:52thriller, and Apple's going to want some intense thrillery score.
02:58And I said, well, I think we need to play to the emotion of these three women.
03:04And I used Twin Peaks as a reference, and one of my favorite scores ever was Angela Bottle
03:11Menti's score to Twin Peaks.
03:13And yes, and that show taught me how to score a thriller, because it was scored with deep
03:22emotion, and it was about sort of what, like, Laura Palmer meant to all these people.
03:27And that was similar here.
03:29And when I said that to her, she agreed, and then it turned out that the director of the
03:35pilot was Leslie Linklater, who actually had directed some episodes of the original Twin
03:40Peaks, which was really cool.
03:41Yeah, not a bad reference to get the gig.
03:43No, I had no idea she was, like, involved until I got that meeting, and then she introduced
03:48herself, and I was like, okay, now I'm going to throw that out right now.
03:52So you split this up into different themes.
03:55As you mentioned, these three women, you've got Nancy, you've got Eleanor, who's played
03:58by Kerry Washington, Nancy Kate Mara, and Mary Elizabeth Moss.
04:03You were separating each of them, how they have their own theme?
04:08Well, initially, I sort of sat down on my piano, as I tend to do, and, you know, try to
04:15find
04:15that time when, like, the kids aren't home, and I can sit down quietly on the piano, because
04:21it's normally chaos in our house with our three children.
04:24And I wrote this theme where I just peddled on one note, and I peddled on that note for,
04:33like, you know, the entire theme, and I realized, okay, that's sort of the question mark about,
04:39you know, what happened to Nancy.
04:42And then it's a three, it's between that one note, there's a two-part harmony around it,
04:48and those two parts represent the other two.
04:51So it was one singular theme for the three of them that we sort of sprinkled in throughout
04:56the series and orchestrated with our amazing orchestra.
05:00It gets darker as it goes along.
05:03Yes.
05:03Did you approach that knowing that?
05:07I guess you've read the scripts, you're sort of figuring out what that means musically.
05:12I don't read scripts.
05:15I know it sounds really stupid.
05:16I mean, I read the pilot, but then when you're working at this crazy pace, you're just getting
05:21episodes thrown at you, and our process is getting involved really early.
05:27And so the editors will sort of share cuts as long as directors are okay sharing with us.
05:32But directors will share cuts.
05:34And so I'm sort of scoring it as I'm seeing it, much in the way, you know, it's similar
05:39to how you're experiencing it.
05:41Obviously, like the key scripts I will read, and I knew that by the end of the season, it
05:46was going to, we were going to need some sort of like symphonic version of that theme,
05:50and we sort of, and the orchestra beautifully just performed that at the end.
05:55And so you want to write something, I think, in its sort of like most basic form, simple
06:00on like an acoustic guitar or a piano or me humming something.
06:05And if that translates, you know that when you have some of the best players in the world
06:09behind you playing it, it's going to get to where it needs to get.
06:14You really don't like reading scripts.
06:15Last time you told us Dan Fogelman sent you his script for Paradise, and you took months
06:19to read it.
06:20It did take me months to read it.
06:21I procrastinate a lot, like a lot.
06:24But it works out in the end.
06:26Tell us about the dance theme there.
06:29That's a pretty cool moment.
06:31Okay, yeah.
06:32So in one of our early conversations, Annie and Leslie said that we're going to be at a
06:40ballet at some point in the season, and they asked me if I would write the ballet, and
06:47initially I was like, okay.
06:48I was like, I've never written a ballet before, but I was like, but you sure you don't want
06:52to like license something?
06:54And they were like, no, no, no.
06:55We want you to write it.
06:56And so they brought in these references, and Schubert was a reference, and they had all
07:01these sort of ideas for what like moved them.
07:05But what I found out was that Annie wanted, I mean, she could have licensed something, and
07:10it would have been the real, real deal.
07:13But instead, she wanted to tell the story of the entire show inside of this ballet.
07:20So there's a love theme where all of this starts, and then there's sort of like a distrust
07:27sort of theme, which is part B of the theme.
07:29And then the third part is like the big battle.
07:32And all these sort of events then actually manifest inside the show throughout the season.
07:37And then some of the ballet music actually ended up inside the score, and ended up becoming
07:41part of the score.
07:42Do you enjoy doing that?
07:44Yeah.
07:44I mean, it was like, it was one of the most difficult things that we had to do.
07:48And Carol, our amazing pianist, collaborated with me on that ballet.
07:53And I want to just highlight like Carol and like all these musicians also just, I'm going
07:58to go off on a tangent for a second, bear with me.
08:02And it is that, you know, we live in this like, we live in this really crazy time where
08:09AI is coming in and taking jobs and coming in and scaring a lot of musicians and composers
08:15in our industry.
08:16And I think it's really, really important to remember that like nothing, nothing can
08:22replace the human touch.
08:23Nothing.
08:27And you see it like, you see it on this stage with everybody here.
08:32Look at that smile.
08:33You can't, I can't replace Nikki's smile.
08:36But, and also all the composers tonight, like you're hearing this music and I'm moved by every
08:42single performance tonight.
08:43I'm watching and I'm like, holy shit, this is fucking awesome.
08:47And like, this cannot be beat by like some like, you know, algorithm.
08:53And, and so I think it's important that we keep on encouraging each other to be creative,
09:00to find our unique voices in these shows.
09:03Like I grew up in India when I was a kid and half of this stuff is like stuff from
09:07like in
09:08my brain, just like the Indian music just sitting in my blood.
09:12And, and, and, and all those experiences, those life experiences are so deeply personal.
09:17And we as composers and musicians should share that with our showrunners and directors to
09:23create something original and fresh that, that can't be sort of beaten by whatever is
09:28coming our way.
09:29So that is a lovely message.
09:30Siddhartha Koslow, everybody.
09:33Thank you so much.
09:34Good to see you.
09:35Good to see you.
09:36Good to see you.
09:36Good to see you.
09:36Good to see you.
09:38Good to see you.
09:40Good to see you.
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