Composer Terence Blanchard Talks Writing Music to Set Up Two Key Moments in ‘The Woman King’

Two-time Academy Award nominee Terence Blanchard talks to Awards Daily about composing the dynamic score for Gina Prince-Bythewood’s The Woman King.

For composer Terence Blanchard, The Woman King laid everything out perfectly when it came to scoring the film.

“The process was really trying to follow what was already shot on the screen,” says Blanchard. “One of the things I told Gina [Prince-Bythewood] was, ‘You did an incredible job because everything is there.’ The only thing I need to do is be with the performances.”

One of Blanchard’s goals was to make the film feel universal while still having the elements of the culture.

“The melodic structure and the harmonic structure of the compositions, I took from music I loved, like Ladysmith Black Mambazo and how they use tight harmony that follows the melodic line. That’s what I tried to do with this. I also tried to utilize it in such a way like Stravinsky did for Hungarian folk music.”

I had the chance to chat with Blanchard about his work on the film, including how the music shifts with the emotion, especially in two key moments in the film. Watch below!