Composer Kris Bowers was the perfect fit to score Reinaldo Marcus Green’s “King Richard,”The story of Richard Williams’ coaching of his daughters Venus Williams and Serena Williams to become tennis greats.
Bowers, whose sport-oriented work includes “Space Jam: A New Legacy,” Kobe Bryant’s “Muse”The Netflix series “Colin in Black & White,”We worked to find a family theme, and score for the tennis games.
Editor Pam Martin relied upon Bowers for support because a lot of Venus’ tennis matches in the film were not commentary. “It’s very clear who’s winning and how the game is going and how close we are to the end of the game. There was a musical feel to it all,”Bowers describes Martin’s score in the film.
Bowers was able to demonstrate how Serena, Venus and other players had changed tennis with the percussive sounds.
Bowers: “I knew I wanted to limit the sound palette to sounds that reflected the game of tennis in a somewhat literal way with strings and having felt on them. There was the prepared piano (using ordinary objects inside a piano to make it sound like a different instrument) where I was able to be really creative and use the piano as percussion. The drums come in and we feel the presence of them stepping them into their power.”
Bowers also used felt to add to the percussive sounds. The piano drove the emotions of the game, and the composer kept returning to it.
Bowers was assembled during the pandemic, following COVID protocols. He preferred to see on a large screen than to record at home. “I wanted to play it live while we were recording it and that required making those sounds on the day,”He says.
Richard’s theme was one of the first cues Bowers found and worked on. His daughters’ success is aided by his warmth and stubbornness. Bowers: “I thought about a chord that could encompass both of those things. That incessant note starts on the first chord and it’s already a dissonance; it’s already a note that doesn’t really fit in that chord but still has a warmth to it.”
He added, “There’s a melody in that theme that I thought would be interesting to do variations on for pretty much all the other themes. It mirrored the way that Richard had this plan that he then gave to his daughters. It’s a five-note theme and it also becomes a theme for the competition scenes.”
Similarly, Venus’ theme was also inspired by Richard’s cue. It begins softly and timid. Bowers says: “By the time we hear it in the end, it’s this big orchestra, which keeps growing and swelling with her, and you feel that support.”