Sparks & Shadows announces the release of the DA VINCI’S DEMONS: SEASON 2 – Original Television Soundtrack, featuring original music by Bear McCreary. The album from the second season of the hit STARZ Original series, produced with BBC Worldwide and Adjacent Productions, will be available through all digital providers on May 27th. A 2-CD collectors edition version will be released later this year.
“DA VINCI’S DEMONS Season 2 is adventurous, ambitious storytelling that required a dynamic, thematically-layered score,” said McCreary. “The season-premiere plunges the audience right back into the chaos from the first-season cliffhanger, and the tension never lets up. The score was an immense challenge but among the most creatively rewarding experiences of my life.”
“With the first season, Bear managed to create an indelible and beautifully thematic score that defined the show as much as the writing and performances,” said series star Tom Riley (Leonard Da Vinci). “With the second he has not only built on that incredible achievement, but in matching the new season’s globe-trotting narrative, has added depth and textures from all over the world which have helped inform what ends up on the screen as well as drawing from it.”
“I feel very lucky to have worked with Bear for the second year running,” Laura Haddock (Lucrezia Donati) explained. “The way he tells a story, highlights an emotion, complements a mood through his music is incredible.”
Following the season one finale, Florence is thrown into chaos in the wake of the Pazzi conspiracy, and Leonardo da Vinci must push the limits of his mind and body to defend the city against the forces of Rome. When the dust settles, friends are buried and rivalries enflamed. While the Medicis go to unthinkable lengths to deal with new threats, da Vinci continues on his quest to find the fabled Book of Leaves and uncover the secret history of his mother. He’ll come to realize that he has lethal competition in his quest—new enemies who may be even worse than the forces of Pope Sixtus. His search will take him to faraway lands and force him to reevaluate everything he knew about the world and his own history.
The voyage takes Da Vinci to exotic places, including the new world. “The sounds of Peru were a huge influence for me,” explained McCreary. “The challenge was to take all the Renaissance instruments and themes I’d accumulated during the first season and add a whole new sound to them. As always, I strove for authenticity. The Peruvian vocals throughout the season are genuine pre-Columbian indigenous chants that we recorded with singers who trekked down from the mountains to a recording studio in Lima specifically to perform on this score. When Da Vinci sees Machu Picchu on screen, the score quotes a song from the region that is over five hundred years old. It is not often that a television show offers this kind of creative opportunity!”
“It is the most exciting form of collaboration – where one inspires the other and vice versa,” said Riley of McCreary’s music for DA VINCI’S DEMONS. “You know you’re onto something special when you find one of the best ways to get yourself into the mindset of a scene is by actually humming your character’s theme.”
Composer Bear McCreary was first launched into pop culture with his groundbreaking score to the hit series BATTLESTAR GALACTICA that was lauded by Variety as “the most innovative music on TV today.” It “fits the action so perfectly, it’s almost devastating: a sci-fi score like no other” (NPR).
McCreary is currently scoring ABC’s hit series MARVEL’S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D., collaborating with visionary Joss Whedon on Marvel’s first foray into network television. Bear’s many other credits include AMC’s record-shattering global phenomenon THE WALKING DEAD. Bear works with David S. Goyer (co-writer of THE DARK KNIGHT trilogy, MAN OF STEEL) to score DA VINCI’S DEMONS, the epic historical fantasy that broke ratings records for STARZ and earned Bear his first Emmy Award, for Outstanding Main Title Theme Music (the theme is a carefully-constructed palindrome that sounds the same forwards and backwards!). Bear also scores STARZ’s hit pirate drama BLACK SAILS, for executive producer Michael Bay. Later in 2014, Bear will return to STARZ, collaborating once again with BSG showrunner Ronald D. Moore on his highly-anticipated series adaptation of Diana Gabaldon’s best-selling OUTLANDER novels.
STARZ presents DA VINCI’S DEMONS, airing on Saturday nights. DA VINCI’S DEMONS: SEASON 2 Original Television Soundtrack, featuring 19 tracks and almost 2 hours of original music composed by Bear McCreary, will be available through all major digital providers on May 27th.
Other releases from Sparks & Shadows include McCreary’s soundtracks for the first season of DA VINCI’S DEMONS, BLACK SAILS, the multimedia science fiction epic DEFIANCE, and the feature film soundtracks for EUROPA REPORT and KNIGHTS OF BADASSDOM.
TRACKLIST
1. Florence Under Siege
2. Transfusion
3. Lucrezia and Leonardo
4. Palle! Palle! Palle!
5. Liberta Populi
6. Illumination
7. Machu Picchu
8. The Test of Worthiness
9. Ima Kama
10. The Antidote
11. The Voice in the Vault
12. The Undiscovered Land
13. Riario Confesses
14. Depth Perception
15. The Brazen Head
16. Bold and Fearless
17. The Ottoman Empire
18. In This Waking Life
19. The Fuse
Visit the official show website
Via Cinemedia
