Five-time Emmy Award-winning composer Laura Karpman joins guest host Jon Burlingame to discuss her first Academy Award® nomination for the music of “American Fiction.” Karpman took a rather unique approach to composing this “jazzy” score, by thinking of the actors’ voices as musical instruments themselves.

“There's a lot of dialogue. And the way the score is constructed is using the actors — particularly Erika Alexander, who plays Coraline, his love interest, and then Jeffrey [Wright], who plays Monk — using their voices as musical instruments. Jeffrey has a great tenor sax vibe, and Coraline has got this sexy alto. And so when they speak, it's under a rhythm section. And then the saxophones and Elena Pinderhughes on flute will come in to kind of move around that. But I did think of the actors as part of the jazz combo, with a rhythm section backing them up.”

—Laura Karpman, Composer, “American Fiction”

Be sure to check out “American Fiction” ahead of the Academy Awards, live from the Dolby Theatre® on March 10th!

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