2006 Emmy Award-Winning Score for Outstanding Music Composition for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special (Original Dramatic Score)

Score available from iTunes.

Writing music that combines multiple cultural influences is something that always interests me so this was an easy project to get excited about. The subject matter and the remarkable history that Steven Spielberg has with the miniseries format combined to make this irresistible to me.

I scored this by thinking of it as a 9 hour movie. That’s what brought a cohesiveness to the score and kept the multiple episode story arcs working from week to week.

Into The West has a rich and varied story which weaves through multiple generations and spans 80 years, so the score is a balancing act between the western orchestra and the Native American drums and woodwinds.

There are two major thematic elements that play, one for the Lakota and one for the settlers. Those two themes were designed to work together at times, and also to work against each other when I needed the tension.