Laura Karpman is the third composer to score Captain America for Marvel. Before her, Henry Jackman took over for Alan Silvestri in The Winter Soldier, Civil War and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. This year’s Captain America: Brave New World also marks he first solo outing with the shield for Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), but Karpman paid homage to her predecessors.
“We could sit here for 20 years talking about Alan Silvestri’s iconic theme,” Karpman said at Deadline’s Sound & Screen: Film event. “I challenge you all to find my little quote to it. It’s there. Of course, Henry Jackman did the second iteration of that.”
Karpman hinted that the Silvestri quote comes in her “Brave New World” theme, Sam’s new theme. She also wrote themes for the film’s conspiracy, Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson) and President Ross (Harrison Ford).
“That of course has to become the Red Hulk,” she said of Ford’s character. “You get one president and it winds up being another. I don’t know if we’ve seen that anywhere. It’s just such fiction. Hidden agendas, conspiracies, people enriching themselves.”
The composer credits Nia DaCosta for bringing her into the Marvel fold. DaCosta recommended Karpman for the animated series What If, which Karpman calls “basically Marvel college because you have to know everything about the MCU and about all the music in the MCU in order to do it and turn it upside down.”
DaCosta hired her for The Marvels, which Karpman scored simultaneously with the Disney+ series Ms. Marvel. Recently, she also scored Marvel’s Zombies.
For Brave New World, Karpman drew on the “mid-century modernism” of classic political thrillers.
“This is a combination of fugue and second-line percussions,” she said.
Those percussions included a drumline from New Orleans.
“All the beautiful snare work in the foreground with the percussion, that was all worked out with second line because of course Sam is from New Orleans,” Karpman said. “I wanted that to be in the DNA of the music even if it’s not explicitly obvious.”
Check back Monday for the panel video.
The post Laura Karpman Hid An Alan Silvestri Homage In Music For ‘Captain America: Brave New World’ – Sound & Screen Film appeared first on Deadline.
