Emmy Award-Winning Composer Brandon Roberts Scores Lucasfilm's Andor Season 2

The second and final season of Lucasfilm's critically acclaimed Star Wars sci-fi thriller Andor features an original score by Emmy-winning composer Brandon Roberts. The score explores themes for new planets that uniquely evolve with protagonist Cassian Andor's growth as a leader of the Rebellion. Andor Season 2 Debuted April 22 on Disney+. The final three eposides drop on May 13.

In realizing the vision of Andor Creator and Executive Producer Tony Gilroy for Season 2, Roberts composed a soundscape that works within the original timeline while building upon composer Nicholas Britell's modern palette from Season 1. Creating new themes that tonally fit within the pre-existing world of "Andor" and align with "Rogue One" is an interesting proposition for Roberts.

"Of course, you're always carrying through the genetic material from Season One so the whole series feels like one unit. Just as the characters and the plot develop, the music did too," says Roberts.

Roberts watched all 12 episodes before composing the score. "Although it is a series, Tony thinks of it narratively as one giant arc. The music had to serve that purpose and the episodic necessities of TV. Most series leave on a cliffhanger, yet musically and thematically Andor is one giant incredible two-year movie, and you have to always keep that in mind," he adds.

Gilroy envisioned new themes for Yavin 4, the planet from Star Wars: A New Hope (Episode IV). The iconic planet served as the Rebel Alliance base from which it launched an attack to destroy the Death Star. "Tony and I discussed deconstructing the Yavin 4 theme. You first hear a skeletal version when the Rebels are first establishing the base. Then visually when the base is established, you experience a fuller and larger orchestral version of the theme," says Roberts.

For Mina-Rau, a new planet introduced in Season 2, the visuals of vast wheat fields influenced the planet's Americana theme that is majestic yet otherworldly. Roberts crafted earthy, warm harmonies, using woodwind, horn, violin, and cello solos to make it very intimate and exposed. "Like a Western, the strings evoke classical quasi-Americana chord structures. While the planet does not have an early 20th-century vibe, the music complements visuals we are familiar with -- something terrestrial, like beautiful fields of wheat. But it's not the Star Wars version of Earth," he says.

Walt Disney Records released Andor: Season 2 - Vol. 1 (Episodes 1 - 3) on April 25. The soundtrack is being released in four volumes. Each volume includes music from three episodes. Volumes 1, 3, and 4 feature music by Brandon Roberts throughout the season, and Volume 2 includes music by Nicholas Britell from episodes 4-6.

For Roberts, contributing music to the Star Wars universe is a dream come true. He says, "One of my earliest memories was being in the theater with my mom seeing 'The Empire Strikes Back,' so Star Wars is ingrained in my DNA, and it's the reason I got into film composing in the first place!"

About Brandon Roberts

Brandon Roberts is an award-winning composer behind some of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful films and series today. He won an Emmy with legendary composer Marco Beltrami for co-writing the score of National Geographic's Oscar and BAFTA-winning documentary Free Solo. His long-standing collaboration with Beltrami also includes scoring blockbuster films including A Quiet Place I and II, Logan, World War Z, and Chaos Walking, as well as Netflix's Fear Street trilogy, and Jordan Peele's The Twilight Zone series for Paramount+, among others. Roberts also composed the music for Eli Roth's hit slasher film Thanksgiving, Paramount Pictures' Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, AMC's animated series Pantheon, and Amazon MGM Studios' On A Wing And A Prayer. Besides recently composing the music for Lucasfilm's Andor Season 2, he scored Eli Craig's satirical slasher film, Clown in a Cornfield being released by RLJE Films and Shutter on May 9, 2025.

About Andor

Lucasfilm's Emmy-nominated thriller Andor returns for its long-awaited conclusion on April 22. The second season takes place as the horizon of war draws near, and Cassian becomes a key player in the Rebel Alliance. Everyone will be tested, and, as the stakes rise, the betrayals, sacrifices, and conflicting agendas will become profound. Rife with political intrigue and danger, the series is a prequel to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which portrayed a heroic band of rebels who steal the plans to the Empire's weapon of mass destruction: The Death Star, setting the stage for the events of the original 1977 film. Andor sets the clock back five years from the events of Rogue One to tell the story of the film's hero, Cassian Andor, and his transformation from a disinterested, cynical nobody into a rebel hero on his way to an epic destiny.

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