‘Women of the Movement’ Composer Kathryn Bostic on the “Sonic Conversation” of Her Score

Composer Kathryn Bostic sees all music as a conversation.

She sees music as an interactive medium, a response to a sensory way of being informed about an event or an emotion. It is a “sonic conversation.” For this incredibly accomplished artist, having a musical expression of an emotional response is as natural as having a verbal dialogue between two people.

That “sonic conversation” invoked within her powerful score for ABC’s Women of the Movement hopefully evokes compassionate responses from viewers.

“I hope to have an elevated compassion and an elevated sense of each of us to be conscious in our choice about how we want to walk in this world. We have an extraordinary amount of power and purpose in choosing to be aware of the fact that we’re all connected, and everything is vastly important for not only our survival but for our ability to thrive,” Bostic explained. “We must not shy away from conversations about narrative, whether it’s a narrative about race or gender or with anything that’s become a construct, become this little box in which people find a comfortable foothold that can often rob us from a greater overview. I’m hoping that this story, this incredible event and whatever music I created, can have an emotional trigger that will really cause people to take a step back and think about how they can change the narrative so that we can all be aware of being here for each other.”

Women of the Movement tells the tragic history of Mamie Till (Adrienne Warren) whose son Emmett (Cedric Joe) was brutally murdered in the deep South. The series follows Till as she seeks justice for her son’s murder, eventually becoming a key figure in the Civil Rights Movement.

To score the series, Bostic employed an approach that incorporated both character themes and scoring for specific moments. Recurring character themes helped provide continuity within the series, and scoring for broader, key moments within the series opened up the score to unique, sometimes region-specific music.

When thinking about Women of the Movement, you would think a composer would heavily layer the more gut-wrenching, dramatic moments with background scoring, amping up the emotion of the scene. Bostic, however by her own description, is a “less-is-more composer.”

Bostic finds scoring deeply emotional moments a part of that “sonic conversation.” She avoids deliberately composing something to evoke a specific emotion. Instead, Women of the Movement with its incredible cast and deeply painful history provides enough raw emotional content. Instead, her score support the audience’s natural reaction to the Till story.

“I do like to give the the audience the ability to respond in whatever way is true for them or works for them in that moment because so much of storytelling is visceral,” Bostic shared. “There were different moments where I would say I don’t feel we need any music here, but, when you’re collaborating with a team of people, it can be very subjective. You have different gradations of suggestion. That is the beauty of the collaborative process.”

ABC’s Women of the Movement is available to stream on Hulu.