5 shows that prove Bear McCreary is the best composer on television

Outlander

Possibly the biggest show in Bear McCreary’s arsenal is Starz’s current flagship series, Outlander. In many ways, this show feels like the culmination of all the different aspects of Bear McCreary’s career pulled into one outing. He uses familiar instruments, explores familiar themes…but his work on Outlander ups the game in just about every way.

Outlander follows World War II nurse Claire Randall as she is pulled back in time to 18th century Scotland, where she falls in love with highlander Jamie Fraser. Jamie and Claire’s love story is the stuff of legend, and the music is moving and passionate to match.

Where Outlander really ups the musical ante is how, throughout the show, Jaime and Claire travel all over the world and the music changes to reflect their journey. Up until its most recent season, each season of Outlander featured different settings (Scotland, France, the Caribbean, and pre-Revolution America). McCreary’s score has incorporated different instruments to reflect each of those cultures. And like Black Sails, there’s a ton of authenticity to the instrument choices he makes, like including twangy banjos for the Americas, bagpipes for Scotland, and hand drums for the Caribbean.

That the score changes to reflect the geography is impressive enough. But McCreary also shows an incredible understanding of the characters’ journeys by how the music evolves over the course of the series, which spans decades for characters like Jamie and Claire.

Season 5 was all about the Frasers laying down roots in their North Carolina homestead. Since there were no new geographical changes, McCreary dug into musical cues he’d already introduced, making them ever more sophisticated. He was laying down roots, just like the Frasers.

With any luck, those roots will be deep and strong, and we’ll have many more years of Bear McCreary’s amazing scores ahead of us.

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