Features Original Music by Emmy® Award-Winner Bear McCreary with performances by
Raya Yarbrough
Madison Gate Records is proud to announce the release of OUTLANDER – Original Television Soundtrack, Vol. 1 in digital and CD formats on February 10, 2015. The album features original music composed by Emmy® Award-Winner Bear McCreary (EVERLY, THE WALKING DEAD, DA VINCI’S DEMONS) along with period-accurate songs adapted by McCreary for the television series, including the main title theme, “The Skye Boat Song,” performed by Raya Yarbrough. The album was produced in collaboration with McCreary’s Sparks & Shadows label.
The OUTLANDER series follows the story of Claire Randall, a married combat nurse from 1945 who is mysteriously swept back in time to 1743, where she is immediately thrown into an unknown world where her life is threatened. When she is forced to marry Jamie, a chivalrous and romantic young Scottish warrior, a passionate affair is ignited that tears Claire’s heart between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives. Adapted from Diana Gabaldon’s international best-selling books, the OUTLANDER series spans the genres of romance, science fiction, history and adventure into one epic tale.
Composer McCreary has been fascinated with the folk music of Jacobean Scotland from an early age. “When I first learned to drive, I was blasting bagpipes from my car speakers,” he jokes. His fascination quickly became a passion: “toward the end of high school, I began researching folk songs of the Jacobite uprising. I was awestruck by their ability to communicate tales of tragedy and triumph through lyrics with double meaning, woven along deceptively simple melodic lines and evocative harmonic progressions,” McCreary notes. OUTLANDER Executive Producer Ronald D. Moore, who had also collaborated with McCreary on BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, knew of McCreary’s passion for the period’s music, and turned to him for the series, so much of which is set in the era.
McCreary was ecstatic about the chance to head to the Highlands for musical inspiration. “From the beginning, I wanted to draw predominantly from Scottish instrumentation and folk music,” he explains. “Instruments such as the fiddle, bagpipes, accordion, penny whistle and bodhrán (a type of frame drum) form the backbone of the score, supported by orchestral strings, haunting vocals and larger percussion.”
“OUTLANDER has given me the opportunity to write the kind of score I have been dreaming about for my entire life,” says McCreary. “I am thrilled that Madison Gate Records and Sparks & Shadows have collaborated to release this soundtrack from the first eight episodes, but we’re just getting started; more drama and music await!”
The second half of the first season of OUTLANDER returns to STARZ in the U.S. on April 4, 2015. OUTLANDER Original Television Soundtrack, Vol. 1 will be available in digital and CD formats on February 10, 2015.
About the OUTLANDER Original Series:
The series adaptation for OUTLANDER was developed by Ronald D. Moore (BATTLESTAR GALACTICA). Moore, Jim Kohlberg and Andy Harries serve as executive producers of OUTLANDER, which is produced by Tall Ship Productions, Story Mining and Supply Company and Left Bank Pictures in association with Sony Pictures Television.
About Bear McCreary:
McCreary’s out-of-the-box thinking led WIRED Magazine to call him a “Secret Weapon” in a recent issue. His unique combination of an atypical instrumental background (he is a professional accordionist) and a rigorous classical training have prepared him to compose for disparate genres. By the age of 24, McCreary was launched into pop culture history with his groundbreaking score to the hit series BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, for which he composed “the most innovative music on TV today” (Variety). It “fits the action so perfectly, it’s almost devastating: a sci-fi score like no other” (NPR). Io9.com declared Bear McCreary one of the Ten Best Science Fiction Composers of all time, listing him alongside legends John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith and Bernard Herrmann. In addition to earning his first Emmy® Award in 2013, McCreary was voted “Composers’ Choice Composer Of The Year – Television” for 2013 by his peers in ASCAP, the first award of its kind.
Read more by the composer here
TRACKLIST
1. People Disappear All The Time
2. Outlander – The Skye Boat Song (feat. Raya Yarbrough) [Castle Leoch version]
3. Dance Of The Druids (feat. Raya Yarbrough)
4. Fallen Through Time
5. Castle Leoch
6. Comin’ Thro’ The Rye
7. The Woman Of Balnain (feat. Gillebrìde MacMillan)
8. Mrs. Fitz
9. The Losing Side Of History
10. Clean Pease Strae
11. The Marriage Contract
12. The Wedding
13. The Veil Of Time
