SoundWorks Collection Interview Series - Beau Willimon & Composer Jeff Beal

This week we spoke with show-runner and writer Beau Willimon and Composer Jeff Beal about their collaboration on the hit Netflix show House of Cards. In our conversation we discuss how Jeff and Beau work together to help support the tone and emotion of the show and break down some of their favorite scenes where music played an important role.

Set in present-day Washington, D.C., House of Cards is the story of Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey), a Democrat from South Carolina’s 5th congressional district and House Majority Whip who, after being passed over for appointment as Secretary of State, initiates an elaborate plan to get himself into a position of greater power, aided by his wife, Claire Underwood (Robin Wright). The series deals primarily with themes of ruthless pragmatism, manipulation and power.

ABOUT BEAU WILLIMON:

Beau Willimon is a screenwriter, playwright, producer. He is the creator of Netflix’s original series House of Cards for which he serves as showrunner and executive producer. House of Cards recently made television history, earning nine Emmy nominations, including Best Drama, the first online streaming show to ever be so honored. House of Cards earned four Golden Globe nominations, including “Best Television Series, Drama.” The Producers Guild recently nominated Willimon and his fellow producers for The Norman Felton Award for Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television, Drama. The Writers Guild also honored House of Cards with several nominations and the show won the WGA Award for Best New Series.

Season two premiered on February 14, 2014. In the second season, Francis (Spacey) and Claire (Wright) Underwood continue their ruthless rise to power as threats mount on all fronts. Zoe Barnes (Kate Mara, American Horror Story), an up-and-coming reporter and Francis’s former paramour, is inching closer to the truth about his crimes. President Walker’s (Michel Gill,The Good Wife) billionaire confidante Raymond Tusk (Gerald McRaney, Southland) demands that Francis reciprocate political favors or face retribution. And Claire must confront the increasing glare of the spotlight as it eats away at her and Francis’s once private existence. The Underwoods must overcome these dangers – past and present – to avoid losing everything, regardless of collateral damage they leave in their wake.

Willimon’s play Farragut North, became the basis for the motion picture screenplay Ides of March, which he co-wrote with George Clooney and Grant Heslov. Ides of March earned Willimon Academy Award®, Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay, and it won The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Award for Best Screenplay.

ABOUT COMPOSER JEFF BEAL:

Jeff Beal is an American composer of music for film, media, and the concert hall. With musical beginnings as a jazz trumpeter and recording artist, his works are infused with an understanding of rhythm and spontaneity. Steven Schneider for the New York Times wrote of “the richness of Beal’s musical thinking…his compositions often capture the liveliness and unpredictability of the best improvisation.” Beal’s seven solo CDs, including Three Graces, Contemplations (Triloka) Red Shift (Koch Jazz), and Liberation (Island Records) established him as a respected recording artist and composer.

Beal’s eclectic music has been singled out with critical acclaim and recognition. His score and theme for Netflix drama, House of Cards, has received three prime time Emmy Award nominations. Regarding his compelling score for the documentary, Blackfish, the late film critic Roger Ebert wrote of Beal’s ability to “invoke many genres; thriller, mystery, melodrama.” Another lauded documentary, The Queen of Versailles, opened the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune wrote that, “scored wittily by composer Jeff Beal, the film glides along on Beal’s waltz theme, a theme full of elegance and class and a discordant hint of storm clouds.”

Scoring Ed Harris’ beautifully balletic painting scenes in Pollock was an exceptional opportunity for Beal. Film critic for the Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan wrote “To watch Lisa Rinzler’s expressive shots of Harris as Pollock create his paintings, especially the famously acrobatic drip canvases, to Jeff Beal’s Aaron Copland-influenced music is little short of thrilling.”

He has received thirteen prime time Emmy nominations for his music, and has won three statues. Other scores of note include his dramatic music for HBO’s acclaimed series Carnivale and Rome, as well as his comedic score and theme for the detective series, Monk. Beal composes, orchestrates, conducts, records and mixes his own scores, which gives his music a very personal, distinctive touch.

Beal’s commissioned works have been performed by many leading orchestras and conductors, including the St. Louis (Marin Alsop), Rochester, Pacific (Carl St. Clair), Frankfurt, Munich, and Detroit (Neeme Jaarvi) symphony orchestras. Kent Nagano commissioned and premiered two works, Alternate Route for trumpet and orchestra with Beal as soloist, and Interchange for string quartet and orchestra. His music for director Philip Haas’ art installation Butchers, Dragons, Gods & Skeletons, was showcased at the Kimball Art Museum and the 2011 Venice Biennale. Other commissions include the Metropole Orchestra (Netherlands), The Ying Quartet, The Debussy Trio, The Henry Mancini Institute, The Commission Project and The Prism Brass Quintet. His first choral commission, entitled The Salvage Men, is written for the Los Angeles Master Chorale.

Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Beal’s grandmother was a pianist who performed on the radio and as accompanist for silent movies. She was an avid jazz fan, and gave him Miles Davis’/Gil Evans’ Sketches of Spain album when he was beginning his trumpet studies. Beal graduated from the Eastman School of Music, where he was commencement speaker and honored alumnus in 2011. He now mentors and encourages young composers as a participant in the Sundance Film Composer seminars and as a guest lecturer at conservatories and universities.