The compositions of Michael Abels are marked by eclectic themes and sounds, creating rich soundscapes that explore connections between global musical traditions. In 2023 he won the Pulitzer Prize for his first opera, Omar, which he co-wrote with Rhiannon Giddens. Abels, a composer with four decades of experience producing works primarily for orchestra, is also known for his shockingly original score, a “gospel horror,” for Jordan Peele’s 2017 film Get Out. Abels has since scored more than a dozen movies and television shows.
Abels will deliver the 8th Annual Robert U. Nelson Lecture at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music on Thursday, February 13 at 5:30 p.m. He sat down to talk with us about growing up on a farm, coming to Los Angeles, and the artistic process of invention and reinvention.
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You grew up in South Dakota and in Arizona, right?
Before I started elementary school, I was raised by my grandparents on a farm in South Dakota. Sheep and corn—all the very traditional family farm images that you have, that was my life. For most of elementary school through high school, I lived with my aunt and uncle in Phoenix. I’m mixed race, and my background is similar to President Obama, in that I was raised by the white side of my family.
Were you able to pursue music in high school?
I have to say, the era I went to school, we had amazing public schools. We had amazing resources. My high school had a beautiful performing arts center that opened my sophomore year. We had a full band and chorus and drama program. I really got a wonderful arts education all through high school.
Is that when you started writing music?
I had piano lessons from a very early age, on the farm [in South Dakota]. I remember as a preschooler hearing the Sound of Music, and Oscar Hammerstein said [in “Do Re Mi”] “one word for every note.” And I thought “what a fun game that is. It’s building blocks but with music.” Every time I played a piece of music on the piano, I would wonder who made it up. So, at age eight I had a musical idea and composed my very first piece of music.
Did you write it down?
I did. They sold composition paper at the music store. I knew how to read music because I played the piano, so I knew how to write down my idea. And I did.
What kind of composition was it?
It was a little melody and it had a little left hand accompaniment. And it was a good little theme. But it was hard to know at that age what came after the first idea. I didn’t know what came next. I kind of lost my mojo.
Then, when I was thirteen, I came back to writing music. And then I got to the same point, where I wasn’t sure what came next. So, I thought to myself, ‘you know, all these composers, they must have overcome this, you have to stick with this.’ And so I did. I stuck with it and I finally finished a piece of music. And I was hooked.
What were your musical influences as a young composer?
I was always interested in every style of music. I may have been trained on classical piano, but I listened to everything, all the music I heard on the radio. If I heard something that grabbed me, it didn’t matter if it was classical or jazz or rock or folk music. The minute I heard a different genre, I would ask “what is that?” If it really was “just one word for every note,” why did country sound so different from disco? And I had to know why.
You know how it is for people who are mechanically inclined, how they take things apart and put them back together again? I’m that way with music. In my own geeky way, I want to disassemble music that I hear and then see what I can do with it.
Did you know you wanted to study music in college?
The plan was to go to USC and study music. Now, I was a pianist, but I knew I wouldn’t have a career as a pianist. But writing music was something I wanted to do. It was certainly clear to me that I wanted to go to L.A. I was interested in every genre of music, and the film industry was in L.A. and I assumed that I would write music for films, because that’s what I wanted to do.
California was also a place people came to reinvent themselves. I knew I was gay, but I was in the closet, and I had a need to go somewhere where no one knew me and where I could reinvent myself.
Do you feel that you found your voice in L.A.?
Well, when I was in composition school, my prevailing sensation was that every musical idea you had, someone else had done it way before you and done it way better. [Laughs.] I mean, you listen to so many wonderful pieces of music, and you keep thinking “well, that idea is taken, that idea is taken.” I started to wonder, “what is my voice?” This is especially hard to deal with, as an artist, in composition school. You are judged on what you produce that is unique, a unique contribution. And I started to question whether I had that in me.
But I knew what I loved about music, and I knew I wanted to learn from it. And I was noticing all kind of genres that we weren’t studying at my school. World music was really exploding around that time, and I was fascinated. So, I actually went to CalArts and audited a class in West African drumming. And I began to notice that there were things that different folk cultures had in common, musically, that you wouldn’t think they had in common, based on geographical distances and such.
Can you give me an example of that?
For instance, there are similarities between Irish and West African music, like their mutual love for 6/8 rhythm. It makes that music go together beautifully. And I realized that it wasn’t important whether a musicologist says there is a relationship. It was important that I, as an artist, as a lover of music, hear a relationship. There’s a relationship to me, even if other people don’t hear it. And that’s what I can show in a piece of music.
And I realized, that’s the thing that I do. It’s like being a prism. A light shines through a prism and refracts in a way that is unique to that glass.
Your first commission was Global Warming, an orchestral piece, in 1990. That piece sounds eclectic and almost syncretic. Do you remember your inspiration for that piece?
Yes. It was a time when global warming wasn’t a political hot potato. It was just a scientific observation. But it was also a time when the Berlin Wall had come down, and the Cold War had ended, and cultures were coming together. And so “global warming” could refer to a warming of international relations. And it made sense to have the piece premiered in the desert, because at that time, global warming was less about hurricanes or floods or other extreme weather events and more about the world becoming more like a desert.
The piece begins as a depiction of a vast desert but then gives way to this very joyous mélange of folk music that has many different sounds and influences. But then, rather than having it end joyously—I didn’t want to trivialize the phenomenon of global warming—right before it ends, the joy abruptly stops, and it returns to depicting a desert.
How has your composing style changed since you wrote Global Warming?
I think I’m more trusting of my instincts now. I was only able to write Global Warming after I understood some things about myself as an artist. And you want to grow and try new things. You want to push yourself, but you also want to do what you are good at. These two things can be in conflict, it can be unsettling. But I’m more at peace now with those two aspects of my character.
It took you a while to get into film scoring.
Not by choice! I tried to get into the industry ever since I graduated from college. I was never successful.
Until you got a call from Jordan Peele, who wanted you to score Get Out (2017). How did you get that opportunity?
I got a call from a producer who asked if I would read the screenplay for a movie that Jordan Peele was making and if I would consider scoring it. Frankly, I thought I was being pranked. I mean, this is Hollywood; everyone is a producer. But anyway, I said yes and he sent me the screenplay and set up a lunch.
How did Jordan Peele get your name if you hadn’t been working in film scoring?
Part of being an artist is declaring you are an artist, no matter what you are doing for a paycheck. I was teaching at a school, but I still had commissions to write—mainly orchestral works. A couple of them ended up on YouTube, where they got several dozen views. One of those views happened to be Jordan Peele, who is unafraid. I think when Jordan looks at any artist in any field, he looks at what their possibilities are, not what their resume says. And I think that’s how it should be, but it is still incredibly brave for him to take chances on unknown artists.
Jordan told me that he wanted someone who understood the African American voice both literally and metaphorically, and that he heard that in my music. And I said, “it sounds like you are talking about gospel horror.”
What is gospel horror?
I didn’t know. Neither of us knew what that meant, but we liked the idea of it. It sounded exciting. Jordan had a clear vision for this film, from top to bottom. It was an exciting project, and I grasped what he wanted. It had to be scary; it had to be evocative. It had to be metaphorical and literal. It was exciting to work on it, but it was also challenging.
Your first opera, Omar, earned you and co-writer Rhiannon Giddens the Pulitzer Prize in music in 2023. Were there similarities in writing for opera as writing for film?
I grew up thinking I didn’t like opera, but I had a teacher who told me that opera was the original film. And that stuck with me. I also noted that the harmonic language of the epic film scores was similar to opera. I certainly saw the relationship between opera and film. They are very similar in terms of sweep and scope, especially with the epics.
But I think right now, it’s more important to point out the differences between the two genres. One of the key differences is that film music is made to follow the emotional language dictated by scenes. In other words, music’s job is to enhance, not to create, emotion. In opera, often music is setting the tone because the music is the primary art. The music sets the tone and then the singer sings into that expression.
So, in opera it is music and then emotion. In film it is emotion and then music. I look at those two things as very different. And that is just one of the many many, many differences in writing opera versus writing for film.
The Los Angeles Premiere of your song cycle At War with Ourselves: 400 Years of You will be on February 15, 7:30 p.m. at the Wallis Theater. This piece was commissioned by the Kronos Quartet and uses the poetry of Nikky Finney. The poem you use is only about a page—how did that translate into a full-length work?
Nikky’s poetry is so rich that there is really a song in every line. And so, each piece starts with her reading a line of poetry, accompanied by the Kronos Quartet, and then the choir sings the song. And that’s how the piece develops.
The piece was commissioned to commemorate the 400th anniversary of people of color arriving in North America. And that is a perfect opportunity to infuse this music with different styles of music that people of color have influenced and invented. So there is ragtime, there is blues, there is jazz, there is even rock.
I can’t help but detect a theme in your music here, a kind of cultural syncretism that is present whether you are scoring films or writing opera or song cycles.
It’s true. Going back to Global Warming and my interest in different cultures—this is something I’ve been doing my whole career. I really felt that while composing Omar, where I was juxtaposing all these different cultures that come together in these amazing scenes. This is what I’ve been doing my whole career. It’s what I do.
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Michael Abels will deliver the 8th Annual Robert U. Nelson Lecture at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music on Thursday, February 13 at 5:30 p.m. in Lani Hall, and will be livestreamed.