Bowers quickly scores title of filmmakers’ favorite composer
Kris Bowers grew up in Los Angeles, just a few minutes away from The World Stage performance space, and immersed in jazz. Music, he knew, was always his path.
“I told (my parents) when I was 12, I want to go to school for jazz and tour as a jazz artist and then transition into film scoring,” the pianist-turned-composer says. “I never had a moment where I thought, ‘Oh, maybe I’ll do something else.’ I was always like, ‘Oh, that’s the path. And like, yeah, I’ll try to figure out how to make it happen.’ ” Scarcely two decades after that preteen declaration, the 34-year-old is an Emmy- and Grammy-nominated composer whose résumé could fill pages. He has created moving compositions for prominent filmmakers, including Ava Duvernay and Justin Simien, and Oscar-winning films like “King Richard” and “Green Book.”
In 2023 alone, Bowers scored Marvel’s “Secret Invasion” series, “Chevalier” and “Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story.”
Having been nominated once for an Oscar — as a filmmaker for his short documentary, “A Concerto is a Conversation” — his scores for Blitz Bazawule’s “The Color Purple” and Duvernay’s “Origin” could again land him at the Academy Awards in March.
Bowers is grateful to the filmmakers who he says have allowed him to explore different styles and genres.
“As a Black composer, I feel like, you know, before those people gave me opportunities, I always had these roadblocks of typecasting. If I wanted to do a certain kind of film, it was hard to get considered for it,” he says, remembering how easy it was for others to only consider him if they needed a hip-hop score.
Now, his relationships with artists like Duvernay allow him
the freedom to experiment with various blends of sound. His scores ebb and flow seamlessly, from the upbeat, drum-filled tempos of “Space Jam: A New Legacy” to the quirky re-imagining of “The Haunted Mansion” to the heart-wrenching soundtrack of “When They See Us.”
“I feel like that type of trust and belief is really what has helped me kind of build my career,” he says.
Throughout his early days of film scoring, Bowers says he felt impostor syndrome, but made it a point to tackle challenging projects.
“What could be seen as confidence was really me being like, ‘I don’t know how to do it, but I’ll figure it out,’ ” he says. “I feel like the daily process is always trying to figure out the voice inside that’s telling me that I don’t belong or shouldn’t be here.”
The recurring impostor syndrome was central to Bowers’ 2021 Oscarnominated short, which he co-directed, composed, and co-starred in alongside his grandfather, telling his family’s story from the American South to Los Angeles.
Bowers still remembers one of the first standout moments of his career, one that assuaged some of his early self-doubt. He was selected to perform two songs in front of thenpresident Barack Obama at the White House, alongside a group of musical icons.
“To be able to invite my dad to that space to see me be a part of a show like that, I think, was one moment that definitely stands out for me as feeling a little bit more confident or comfortable in this feeling of having a secure position in an industry,” he recalls.
As Bowers continues his rise in the industry, his “I made it” moments and sense of security no longer revolve around public recognition. As a husband and the father of a baby girl, Bowers is more concerned with impressing and providing for the two people he holds dear.
“Now it’s so much more driven by wanting to make my daughter proud, like in the future when she looks back on my career to have some sort of sense of pride in who her dad is or like how her dad decided to work, same with my wife, just making sure that they feel taken care of,” he says.