Marvel Studios’ latest series Agatha All Along is a hit with audiences for its amazing cast led by Kathryn Hahn, fantastic visuals and unique story-telling. An often overlooked element that is essential to the series success is the music, composed by Christophe Beck and Michael Paraskevas. The dynamic musical duo has worked together for many years on a variety of projects, including working as co-composers on another Marvel series, Hawkeye, as well as the feature film Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
Recently, I spoke with co-somposer Michael Paraskevas about the work that went into finding Agatha’s unique sound that is unlike the typical superhero music. Paraskevas’ mentor and co-composer, Christophe Beck, has worked on six Marvel projects, including every Ant-Man film and WandaVision. Beck was also the composer for Disney’s hit films Frozen and Frozen II, which are both beloved for their music. Clearly, Beck is no stranger to powerful heroes who wield magic.
Via e-mail, Beck added his insight into the work that he and Paraskevas did on Agatha All Along.
All episodes of Agatha All Along are streaming now on Disney+.
POC Culture: You have worked on quite a few Marvel projects. For Agatha All Along, was there anything you took from the music in WandaVision and other past Marvel projects that you wanted to incorporate into the music for this series?
Christophe Beck: Absolutely, one of the most exciting aspects of working with Marvel on a regular basis (this is my sixth project with Marvel) is the growth and evolution of the music and the interconnectedness of the stories throughout the MCU. We developed a few themes from WandaVision in Agatha All Along – among them the original Agatha All Along theme written by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Bobby Lopez, and the Love Theme between Wanda and Vision.
POC Culture: You have talked about how the typical superhero sounds didn’t work for this series and that you wanted to try to subvert those sounds. Can you elaborate on that creative process of subverting more conventional superhero music and creating the right sound for this series?
Christophe Beck: Agatha Harkness is such a complex character; simultaneously an anti-hero and also someone who we come to empathize deeply with. Consequently, the music needed to encapsulate all of the nuance and intricacies of her character. We employed a more unique instrumentation, blending the orchestra (without French Horns or Trumpets, typically synonymous with superheroes) with an experimental string quartet and a mixture of solo instruments that we processed to sound more ethereal and otherworldly.
About Agatha All Along:
The infamous Agatha Harkness finds herself down and out of power after a suspicious goth Teen helps break her free from a distorted spell. Her interest is piqued when he begs her to take him on the legendary Witches’ Road, a magical gauntlet of trials that, if survived, rewards a witch with what they’re missing. Together, Agatha and this mysterious Teen pull together a desperate coven, and set off down, down, down The Road…
The infamous Agatha Harkness finds herself down and out of power after a suspicious goth Teen helps break her free from a distorted spell. Her interest is piqued when he begs her to take him on the legendary Witches’ Road, a magical gauntlet of trials that, if survived, rewards a witch with what they’re missing. Together, Agatha and this mysterious Teen pull together a desperate coven, and set off down, down, down The Road…
Ron is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of POC Culture. Â He is a big believer in the power and impact of pop culture and the importance of representation in media.
