Game Of Thrones Season 8 score is “more epic than ever,” says composer Ramin Djawadi

Game of Thrones is not shy about giving its fans goosebumps. Just hear the intro and tell me I’m wrong!

Indeed a significant part of what makes Game of Thrones such an epic show is its music score and the man behind it, German-Iranian composer Ramin Djawadi. Starting from the now iconic intro, Djawadi has gone on to score for each subsequent Season of Game of Thrones. But scoring for the most ambitious season of Game of Thrones must have needed a change of scale. In a recent interview with Variety, Djawadi talked about the final season score and his journey with Game of Thrones.

Like everybody else, Djawadi too is keen to avoid spoilers. But he does promise that the score “gets intense and more epic than ever. Musically speaking, this season will have new material that we haven’t heard before, but lots of the existing themes will also return.” 

With an endless list of characters, locations, incidents, and royal houses to create separate themes for, Djawadi had a herculean task. Djawadi’s score followed the development arcs of characters and changed as they grew in importance. In his words,

 “It started out intentionally small. But as the story expanded, the dragons arrived, the battles grew, the drama got bigger and bigger, the music had to grow with it. We added bigger orchestras, more choir, more instrumentation all around.” 

Now the drama and the battles all reach their zenith in the final season, and the score mirrors the epic quality of it.

Just how epic? We are talking a 60-piece orchestra, a 40-voice mixed chorus and a 12-voice children’s choir. This is the largest ensemble of musicians used in the show ever.

A scene from the iconic ‘Light of the Seven’ episode for which Djawadi’s score was a high point.

When Game of Thrones producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss reached out to him back in 2011, Djawadi’s solo credits had been minimal, the TV series ‘Prison Break’ and the Marvel film ‘Iron Man’ among them. Back then he was better-known as assistant to the legendary Hans Zimmer. The now-iconic theme music was born while driving home from an initial screening of the pilot.

Djawadi’s mastery has only grown from there. Among his personal favourites from all the seven seasons are ‘Mhysa’, ‘Rains of Castamere’, ‘Light of the Seven’, and the love theme of Jon and Daenerys. With the final season promising to be bigger and better than ever, Djawadi’s sure to add some more to that list.

 

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