Kris Bowers | |
---|---|
Background information | |
Born | Los Angeles, California, U.S. | April 5, 1989
Genres | Jazz, classical, electronic, ambient |
Occupation(s) | Composer, musician |
Instrument(s) | Piano, keyboards |
Years active | 2010–present |
Website | krisbowers |
Kristopher Bowers (born April 5, 1989) is an American composer, pianist and documentary director. He has composed scores for films, including Green Book , King Richard , The Color Purple , and The Wild Robot and television series, among them Bridgerton , Mrs. America, Dear White People , and When They See Us .
Bowers is a recipient of a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Direction and Composition for Amazon Prime Video's adaptation of The Snowy Day . He has garnered multiple nominations at the Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, Grammy Awards and Critics' Choice Awards.
Bowers co-directed with Ben Proudfoot the documentaries A Concerto Is a Conversation and The Last Repair Shop , the latter winning an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject. [1]
During his career Bowers has recorded, performed, and collaborated with Jay-Z, Kanye West, Alicia Keys and José James.
He has collaborated with film directors Chris Sanders, Justin Simien, Malcolm D. Lee, Reinaldo Marcus Green and Blitz Bazawule.
Bowers was born in Los Angeles, California, on April 5, 1989. [2] His father is a film and television writer, and his mother is an executive at DirecTV. [3] Although neither of his parents received more than a high school education, [4] they wanted their son to play the piano, so they played recordings of pianists while he was still in the womb. They sent him to lessons beginning at the age of 4. [3] He had private classical music lessons starting at around the age of 9. [3] He listened to "classic soul records and hip-hop before falling under the spell of jazz, classical music, and film scores." [2] Bowers studied jazz and classical piano at Los Angeles County High School for the Arts [2] where his teachers included Mulgrew Miller and Donald Vega. [5] He studied jazz at Colburn School for Performing Arts. [6] He graduated in 2006 [6] then attended Juilliard and obtained a bachelor's and master's degree in jazz performance. [2] While a student, he performed frequently in New York City. [2]
In the same year, Bowers played on Watch the Throne , a Jay Z and Kanye West album. [7] He then toured with Marcus Miller during 2012. [8] He has collaborated with musicians in several genres. [9] [10] In late 2013, he recorded his debut album Heroes + Misfits (Concord, 2014). [11] An AllMusic reviewer commented that the pianist was "based in jazz but with an ear for contemporary R&B, film scores, and electronic music". [11] The album premiered at No. 1 on the iTunes Jazz charts. [12] His first film composition was for the 2013 documentary Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me . [13] In 2014, Bowers performed at the International Jazz Day Concert in Japan, [14] [15] the Festival de Jazz de Vitoria-Gasteiz in Spain, [16] and at the London Jazz Festival. [17]
In 2015, his work on the showtime documentary Kobe Bryant's Muse gained him attention as an up-and-coming composer well-versed in a wide range of compositional styles. [18] [7] In the same year, he scored two other Showtime documentaries: I Am Giant about the football player Victor Cruz and Play It Forward about Tony Gonzalez. [7] He was one of six composers invited to the Sundance Composers Lab in 2015. [19] In 2016, Bowers was invited to perform at The White House for the International Jazz Day Concert hosted by President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama. [20]
In 2017, Bowers worked on the documentary Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You and the film Little Boxes , as well as the television programs Religion of Sports and Dear White People . [21] [22] Also in 2016, Bowers composed music for the Amazon children's Christmas special, The Snowy Day , based on the 1962 book of the same title by Ezra Jack Keats. [23] [24] It was for this show that Bowers received a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Music Direction and Composition. [25] [26] [27]
Bowers wrote the score for the 2018 film Green Book , which was nominated for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Score. [28] He was also the piano teacher for the film's star, Mahershala Ali, and was Ali's stand in for some close ups of hands playing. [28] In 2019 Bowers wrote the score for Ava DuVernay's mini-series When They See Us . [29] [30] He received his first Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards nominations for Outstanding Music Composition for a Limited or Anthology Series, Movie or Special.
In 2020, Bowers and Ben Proudfoot codirected the short documentary film A Concerto Is a Conversation , centering on Bowers' conversations with his grandfather about personal and family history. [31] The film, which premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, was an Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary (Short Subject) at the 93rd Academy Awards. [32] Since 2020, Bowers has been composing the score for Netflix's period drama, Bridgerton , being nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series.
Between 2020 and 2021, Bowers was involved in several projects. He worked on comedy horror film Bad Hair. [33]
Bowers wrote the score of the 2021 film Space Jam: A New Legacy . [34] [35] and the 2022 film Chevalier. [36] In May 2022, the Monterey Jazz Festival commissioned Bowers to compose a work, which he presented that September at the annual event. The piece, Ásylo (Greek for sanctuary), commemorates the 30th anniversary of the nearby Monterey National Marine Sanctuary. Bowers had previously performed at the festival as a high school student for three years starting in 2003. [37] [38]
In May 2023, Bowers worked on two original soundtrack projects for the series Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story : the first one as the score of the series, [39] while the second one provided for the reinterpretation in a classical music key of pop songs, [40] working with Alicia Keys on the remaining of her song "If I Ain't Got You" as the lead single of the album. [41] In December 2023, Bowers composed the score of The Color Purple by Blitz the Ambassador. [42]
In 2015, Bowers teamed up with the choreographer Kyle Abraham, to create Absent Matter, which premiered at the Joyce Theater in New York City. [43] During the following year, Bowers and Abraham collaborated again on Untitled America for Alvin Ailey. [44] [45]
Bowers performed at the White House for the 2016 International Jazz Day, hosted by President of the United States Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. [46] Bowers participated as a composer in the Sundance Film Composers Lab at Skywalker Sound in 2015. [47]
Bowers has paired his music with extensive and immersive dining experiences. In 2016, he was hired by Bang & Olufsen to create a score to accompany a multi-course meal prepared by chef Fredrik Berselius, founder of Aska. [48] In 2017, Krug commissioned Bowers to write compositions inspired by and paired with a signature Krug champagne. [49]
In a review of one of his early shows as a bandleader, The New York Times referred to Bowers' playing as "serious, thoughtful, organized, restrained; he made the piano sound good. His set had range and ambition and said something strong, sweet, and normative about phrasing and rhythm in jazz right now." [50]
Bowers' influences include "Oscar Peterson, Wynton Kelly ('for his comping and incredible feel'), Duke Ellington ('for his compositions'), Ahmad Jamal and Count Basie", [8] as well as John Williams. [51]
Ceremony | Year | Category | Nominated Work | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Academy Awards | 2021 | Best Documentary Short Subject | A Concerto Is a Conversation (with Ben Proudfoot) | Nominated | [52] |
2024 | The Last Repair Shop (with Ben Proudfoot) | Won | [53] | ||
2025 | Best Original Score | The Wild Robot | Pending | [54] | |
African-American Film Critics Association Awards | 2024 | Best Music | The Color Purple | Won | [55] |
2025 | Best Original Score | The Wild Robot | Won | [56] | |
Annie Awards | 2025 | Outstanding Achievement for Music in a Feature Production | The Wild Robot | Pending | |
Astra Film and Creative Awards | 2024 | Best Short Film | The Last Repair Shop | Nominated | [57] |
2025 | Artisan Achievement Award | Himself | Honoree | ||
Best Original Score | The Wild Robot | Nominated | |||
Black Reel Awards | 2019 | Outstanding Music (Comedy, Drama or Limited Series) | When They See Us | Nominated | [58] |
2022 | Outstanding Original Score | Respect | Nominated | [59] | |
Outstanding Musical Score (TV Movie or Limited Series) | Bridgerton | Nominated | |||
2024 | Outstanding Original Score | Chevalier | Nominated | [59] | |
The Color Purple | Won | ||||
Outstanding Independent Short Film | The Last Repair Shop(directior with Ben Proudfoot) | Nominated | |||
2025 | Outstanding Score | The Wild Robot | Pending | [60] | |
Calgary International Film Festival | 2023 | Best Documentary Short Film | The Last Repair Shop | Won | [61] |
Celebration of Black Cinema and Television | 2024 | Composer Award | The Wild Robot | Won | [62] |
Critics' Choice Awards | 2018 | Best Score | Green Book | Nominated | [63] |
2025 | The Wild Robot | Pending | |||
Critics' Choice Documentary Awards | 2023 | Best Short Documentary | The Last Repair Shop | Won | [64] |
Best Score | Nominated | ||||
Dallas–Fort Worth Film Critics Association | 2024 | Best Musical Score | The Wild Robot | Won | [65] |
Daytime Emmy Award | 2017 | Outstanding Music Direction and Composition | The Snowy Day(with Rossanna S. Wright) | Won | [66] [67] |
Golden Globe Award | 2025 | Best Original Score | The Wild Robot | Nominated | |
Grammy Awards | 2020 | Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella | "Blue Skies" | Nominated | [68] |
2022 | Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media | Bridgerton: Season 1 | Nominated | ||
2025 | Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media | The Color Purple | Pending | ||
Hollywood Music in Media Awards | 2018 | Best Original Score in a Feature Film | Green Book | Nominated | [58] |
2019 | Best Original Score in a TV Show/Limited Series | When They See Us | Won | [69] | |
2021 | Best Original Score in a Feature Film | King Richard | Nominated | [70] | |
Best Original Song in a TV Show/Limited Series | "Together All the Way" from Dear White People(with Siedah Garrett) | Nominated | |||
2023 | Best Original Score in a Feature Film | Chevalier | Nominated | [71] | |
Best Original Score – Short Film (Documentary) | The Last Repair Shop(with Katya Richardson) | Nominated | |||
Best Main Title Theme – TV Show/Limited Series | Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story | Nominated | |||
2024 | Best Original Score – Animated Film | The Wild Robot | Won | [72] | |
Best Exhibitions, Theme Parks or Special Projects | Dreaming Freedom(as part of musicians) | Nominated | |||
Middleburg Film Festival | 2023 | Sheila Johnson Vanguard Award | Himself | Won | [73] |
NAACP Image Awards | 2023 | Outstanding Soundtrack/Compilation Album | Bridgerton Season Two (Soundtrack from the Netflix Series) | Nominated | [74] |
2024 | Outstanding Original Score for TV/Film | Kris Bowers | Nominated | [75] | |
Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards | 2019 | Outstanding Music Composition for a Limited or Anthology Series, Movie or Special | "Part 2" in When They See Us | Nominated | [76] |
2020 | "Reagan" in Mrs. America | Nominated | |||
2021 | Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music | Bridgerton(with Michael Dean Parsons) | Nominated | ||
Outstanding Music Composition for a Series | "Diamond of the First Water" in Bridgerton | Nominated | |||
San Francisco International Film Festival | 2021 | Best Family Film | A Concerto Is a Conversation(with Ben Proudfoot) | Nominated | [77] |
Special Jury Award | Won | ||||
2024 | Best Original Score | The Wild Robot | Nominated | [78] | |
Satellite Awards | 2025 | Best Original Score | The Wild Robot | Pending | [79] |
Seattle Film Critics Society Awards | 2024 | Best Original Score | The Wild Robot | Nominated | [80] |
Society of Composers & Lyricists Awards | 2020 | Outstanding Original Score for a Television or Streaming Production | When They See Us | Nominated | [81] |
2022 | Outstanding Original Song for a Comedy or Musical Visual Media Production | "Together All the Way" in Dear White People(with Siedah Garrett) | Nominated | [82] | |
2025 | Outstanding Original Score for a Studio Film | The Wild Robot | Pending | [83] | |
St. Louis Film Critics Association | 2024 | Best Score | The Wild Robot | Nominated | [84] |
Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition | 2011 | Himself | Won | [85] | |
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association | 2024 | Best Original Score | The Wild Robot | Nominated | [86] |
World Soundtrack Awards | 2019 | Discovery of the Year | Green Book | Nominated | [87] |
Television Composer of the Year | When They See Us | Nominated | |||
Honor
An asterisk (*) indicates that the year is that of release.
Year recorded | Title | Label | Personnel/Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2012 | Heroes + Misfits | Concord | With Adam Agati (guitar), Burniss Earl Travis II (electric bass), Jamire Williams (drums); some tracks with Casey Benjamin (alto sax, vocoder) added; some tracks with Kenneth Whalum III (tenor sax) added; vocalists added are Chris Turner (3 tracks), Julia Easterlin (1 track), José James (1 track) |
Year recorded | Leader | Title | Label |
---|---|---|---|
2010–11 | Jay Z and Kanye West | Watch the Throne | Roc-A-Fella, Roc Nation, Def Jam |
2013* | Etienne Charles | Creole Soul | Culture Shock |
Next Collective | Cover Art | Concord | |
2014* | Robin Eubanks | Klassik Rock, Vol. 1 | Artist Share |
José James | While You Were Sleeping | Blue Note | |
Takuya Kuroda | Rising Son | ||
Harvey Mason | Chameleon | Concord Jazz | |
2016* | A Tribe Called Quest | We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service | Epic |
2017* | Maurice Brown | The Mood | Ropeadope |
Year | Title | Director | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2016 | Little Boxes | Rob Meyer | |
2018 | Monsters and Men | Reinaldo Marcus Green | |
Green Book [28] | Peter Farrelly | ||
2020 | Bad Hair | Justin Simien | |
2021 | The United States vs. Billie Holiday | Lee Daniels | |
Space Jam: A New Legacy [34] | Malcolm D. Lee | Replaced Hans Zimmer | |
Respect | Liesl Tommy | ||
King Richard | Reinaldo Marcus Green | ||
2022 | Chevalier | Stephen Williams | |
2023 | Haunted Mansion | Justin Simien | |
Origin | Ava DuVernay | ||
The Color Purple | Blitz Bazawule | ||
2024 | Bob Marley: One Love | Reinaldo Marcus Green | |
The Wild Robot | Chris Sanders | Bowers' first score for an animated film Replaced Henry Jackman [ citation needed ] |
Year | Title | Director | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2013 | Seeds of Time [91] | Sandy McLeod | |
Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me [92] | Chiemi Karasawa | Credited as Kristopher Bowers | |
2015 | Kobe Bryant's Muse [93] | Gotham Chopra | |
I Am Giant: Victor Cruz [90] | |||
Play It Forward [90] | Andrea Blaugrund Nevins | ||
2017 | Copwatch [94] | Camilla Hall | |
2021 | A Concerto Is a Conversation | Co-director with Ben Proudfoot and composer | |
2023 | The Last Repair Shop | Co-director with Ben Proudfoot and composer | Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film |
Year | Title | Studio | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2019 | Madden NFL 20 | EA Sports | |
2020 | Madden NFL 21 [95] | ||
2024 | EA Sports College Football 25 | Campus Clash Theme only | |
Ryan Shore is a Canadian composer, songwriter, conductor, music producer, and music director for film, television, virtual reality, records, games, concerts, and theater. He is often known from his scores for Star Wars, Scooby-Doo!, Elmo, and Go! Go! Cory Carson. He is the nephew of Academy Award winning film composer Howard Shore.
Lee Elwood Holdridge is a Haitian-born American composer, conductor, and orchestrator. An 18-time Emmy Award nominee, he has won two Primetime Emmy Awards, two Daytime Emmy Awards, two News and Documentary Emmy Awards, and one Sports Emmy Award. He has also been nominated for two Grammy Awards.
Laura Anne Karpman is an American composer, whose work has included music for film, television, video games, theater, and the concert hall. She has won five Emmy Awards for her work. Karpman was trained at the Juilliard School, where she played jazz by day and honed her skills scatting in bars at night.
Emily Jordan Bear is an American composer, pianist, songwriter and singer. After beginning to play the piano and compose music as a small child, Bear made her professional piano debut at the Ravinia Festival at the age of five, the youngest performer ever to play there. She gained wider notice from a series of appearances on The Ellen DeGeneres Show beginning at the age of six. She has since played her own compositions and other works with orchestras and ensembles in North America, Europe and Asia, including appearances at Carnegie Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, the Montreux Jazz Festival and Jazz Open Stuttgart. She won two Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, the youngest person ever to win the award, and also won two Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composers Awards.
Rob Simonsen is an American composer and conductor. He is best known for his scores in films such as 500 Days of Summer (2009), The Age of Adaline (2015), Gifted (2017), The Only Living Boy in New York (2017), Tully (2018), Love, Simon (2018), The Front Runner (2018), The Way Back (2020), Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021), The Adam Project (2022), The Whale (2022), Deadpool & Wolverine (2024), and It Ends with Us (2024), and the television series Life in Pieces (2015–2019). He also collaborates with the directors Marc Webb, Jason Reitman and Shawn Levy.
Joel Goodman is an American film score composer and recording artist. He is the founder of Museum Music, MusicBox, and Hi-Fi Productions. In 2023 he released the album An Exquisite Moment.
Vivek Maddala is a four-time Emmy-winning composer who focuses on writing music for feature films, theater and dance productions, and television. He is known for composing music scores for films such as Kaboom, Highway, and the Peabody-winning American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs, as well as for silent film restorations for Turner Classic Movies, including a 90-minute score for the Greta Garbo film The Mysterious Lady (2002). Additionally, Maddala writes, produces, and performs as a multi-instrumentalist with various recording artists. He is a Sundance Lab Fellow for film composition, and has had work premiere at the Cannes, Toronto, Berlin, and Sundance film festivals. Maddala has received six Emmy nominations, with four wins, in the category of "Outstanding Music Direction and Composition."
Nicholas Britell is an American film and television composer. He has received numerous accolades including an Emmy Award as well as nominations for three Academy Awards and a Grammy Award. He has received Academy Award nominations for Best Original Score for Barry Jenkins' Moonlight (2016) and If Beale Street Could Talk (2018), and Adam McKay's Don't Look Up (2021). He also scored McKay's The Big Short (2015) and Vice (2018). He is also known for scoring Battle of the Sexes (2017), Cruella (2021), and She Said (2022).
Motto Pictures is a documentary production company based in Brooklyn, New York, specializing in producing and executive producing documentary features. Motto secures financing, builds distribution strategies, and creatively develops films, and has produced over 25 feature documentaries and won numerous awards.
Eric Weinrib is a filmmaker and TV producer from Plainview, New York, United States.
Lana Wilson is an American filmmaker. She directed the feature documentaries After Tiller, The Departure,Miss Americana, and Look into My Eyes, as well as the two-part documentary Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields. The first two films were nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary.
Kathryn Bostic is an American composer and artist known for her work on award-winning films, TV, and theater. In 2016, she became the first female African American score composer to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and was the vice president of the Alliance for Women Film Composers from 2016 to 2018.
Higher Ground Productions, also known simply as Higher Ground, is an American production company which was founded in 2018 by former United States President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama.
Jeremiah Hayes is a Canadian film director, writer and editor. Hayes is known for being the co-director, co-writer and the editor of the documentary Reel Injun, which was awarded a Gemini Award in 2010 for Best Direction in a Documentary Program. In 2011, Reel Injun won a Peabody Award for Best Electronic Media. Hayes was the co-editor of Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World, which was awarded a Canadian Screen Award for Best Editing in a Documentary in 2018. In 2018, Rumble won a Canadian Screen Award for Best Feature Length Documentary, and in 2017 Rumble won the Special Jury Award for Masterful Storytelling at the Sundance Film Festival in 2017. In 2020, Rumble received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Arts & Culture Documentary. In 2021, Reel Injun is featured in the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures core exhibition of the Stories of Cinema.
Summer of Soul is a 2021 American independent documentary film about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, directed by Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson in his directorial debut. It had its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival on January 28, 2021, where it won the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award in the documentary categories. It had a limited theatrical release in the U.S. by Searchlight Pictures on June 25, 2021, before expanding and being released for streaming on Hulu the next weekend.
Jeen-Yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy is a 2022 American documentary film directed by Coodie & Chike about the life of American rapper, record producer, and fashion designer Kanye West and, to a lesser extent, Coodie Simmons.
Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story is an American historical romance television limited series created by Shonda Rhimes for Netflix. The series is a prequel spin-off of the Netflix series Bridgerton. The story is loosely based on an alternate history take on the rise of Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz to prominence and power in the late 18th century. The series premiered on May 4, 2023.
The music for the historical fiction-romance streaming television series Bridgerton, on the novel series of the same name by Julia Quinn, features an orchestral and classical score composed and produced by Kris Bowers and orchestral covers of contemporary popular music, performed by Vitamin String Quartet, Dunno and Bowers himself. Both the soundtrack and covers were released in the course of the series' premiere, with the first season's album being distributed by Lakeshore Records and the second season, by Capitol Records. The music received critical acclaim.
King Richard (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack to the 2021 film of the same name directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green and starred Will Smith. The film's original score composed by Kris Bowers, released on November 12, 2021 by WaterTower Music, with 18 tracks from the score and an original song "Be Alive" performed by Beyoncé. It was also released as a single on the same date. The song earned Beyoncé, her first Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song at the 94th edition of the ceremony held in March 2022, along with numerous accolades.
The Last Repair Shop is a 2023 Canadian-American short documentary film directed by Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers. Produced by Breakwater Studios, the film had its premiere on September 1, 2023 at the 50th Telluride Film Festival. On March 10, 2024, it won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film at the 96th Academy Awards.
{{cite news}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)