Classical composer Nico Muhly rarely writes for TV, making his score for Apple TV+’s eight-hour “Pachinko” something of an event.
” something of an event. The century-spanning epic follows a poor Korean woman and her descendants as their lives intertwine, often unhappily, with those of their Japanese neighbors.Why did you want to tackle this project?
I’d read the book, like the majority of Americans. Soo Hugh, the showrunner, had somehow come across a lot of my instrumental music. She called me up and said, “Do you want to do this?” It was a very fast “yes.” What did “Pachinko” need, musically? I noticed that you didn’t really acknowledge the Korean or Japanese settings with your music.
Not at all. That was one of the first things I said to Soo: “If you want someone to do East Asian music, you’ve got to hire someone else.” Yes, it is a story that is so incredibly specific to this one period of time and this one colonial gesture. It does take us to America, and this very modern vision of what Japan and Korea are like now. [But] instead of being temporally specific, the music latches on to the characters a little bit more.