WaterTower Music is excited to announce today's release of the King Richard (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), which features the music of Oscar nominated- and Emmy Award-winning composer Kris Bowers. Warner Bros. Pictures' King Richard stars two-time Oscar nominee Will Smith, under the direction of Reinaldo Marcus Green as Richard Williams, a man determined to write his daughters, Venus and Serena, into history. Training on Compton, California's neglected tennis courts—rain or shine—the girls are shaped by their father's unyielding commitment and their mother's balanced perspective and keen intuition, defying the seemingly insurmountable odds and prevailing expectations laid before them. The King Richard (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) will be released today, November 19, the same day the film is released in U.S. theaters and on HBO Max via the Ad-Free plan; it will be available on HBO Max for 31 days from theatrical release.
When it came to creating a tonal landscape for King Richard, composer Kris Bowers described how his collaboration with director Reinaldo Marcus Green inspired his approach to the creation of the score. "Having previously worked with Rei on Monsters and Men, we developed a deep trust in our collaborative relationship. That led to Rei encouraging me to trust my instincts and to write from a personal place. And this score is in fact a very personal one for me."
Bowers added, "Watching Richard and Oracene's support, love, and sacrifice for Serena and Venus not only reminded me of so many black families and black parents that put their all into their children, but it reminded me of my own parents as well. In a similar way to Richard, my dad decided before I was born that he wanted me to play piano, and my parents scoured the entire county to find me the best music educators they could. As I developed my craft, my dad was in constant communication with all of my teachers, finding out how I might be able to improve and excel, and he also sat behind me while I practiced every day from the age of 4 until the end of high school.
"Due to the personal connection I felt to the film's story," Bowers continued, "I decided to heavily feature piano and prepared piano. Additionally, wanting to evoke the sound and feeling of tennis, I chose to only feature strings, harp, piano, prepared piano and percussion, the prepared piano and percussion coming in during moments where we see the uniqueness of the Williams sisters in this predominantly white sport. In a way, the percussion and prepared piano is meant to mirror the grit and tenacity of these girls/this family. Lastly, to build off of the idea of how this story originated with Richard's plan, all of the thematic material are variations on the same theme. A theme we first hear with Richard, and develops into Venus's theme, a theme for the matches themselves, and so on."