CMU School of Drama


Tuesday, September 27, 2022

'Andor' Music: Nicholas Britell Breaks Down the Score and Theme Song

Variety: Writing new music for the “Star Wars” universe would be daunting for any composer, considering its iconic scores by the legendary John Williams. Luckily for “Andor” composer Nicholas Britell, writer-producer Tony Gilroy and Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy gave him “total freedom” to imagine a new, totally unique soundscape for the backstory of Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), the rebel spy first encountered in the 2016 film “Rogue One.”

1 comment:

Hailey Garza said...

Reading and writing about this article really caught my eye because one, I love Star Wars with all my heart, and two, I have deep connection to scores (especially scores written for Star Wars). It’s going to be interesting seeing this transition in creating scores from John Williams to other new people. But from watching the first two episodes of Andor, I think Nicholas Britell is and is going to do a fantastic job. Throughout each element of filmmaking or creating for theatre, creators and designers have to deep dive into the story and the characters. I enjoyed reading about how Britell did this. It was also interesting to read what Britell thought of this character “Cassian”, his hometown, and what each element of sound he could incorporate to make Cassian’s theme and the music for Andor. I also saw that there’s a different iteration for each episode, and it reminded me of Wandavision and how there’s a different style theme for each episode as well.