Our Great National Parks

I was delighted to get the commission to write the score for this fantastic five part natural history series for Netflix. When I first signed onto the project in early 2021 I didn’t know who the presenter would be,  and they weren’t allowed to tell me until I’d signed all manner of NDAs saying I wouldn’t reveal it on pain of death etc! Needless to say, I was very excited that Barack Obama was attached not just as a producer but as the presenter and narrator of the series.

The series takes the viewer on a tour of some of the world’s most spectacular National Parks, with four of the episodes focusing on a single park, and the opening episode taking a more general view of the beauty and diversity of these protected regions. Barack Obama did a lot to conserve and expand the National Parks in the USA during his time in office, and remains a passionate believer in the importance of preserving these wild spaces across the globe.

I worked with Sophie Todd (the producer / showrunner) and the five teams of directors and editors on the score over several months. In early conversations it was clear that they didn’t want a classic natural history style score for this series, but were hoping for a more wondrous and evocative mood with warmth, inviting melodies and time to contemplate the beauty and power of the natural world and it’s inhabitants. That said, of course there are moments of humour, drama, tension and the music still had to do a fair bit of storytelling across the films. But the biggest challenge was bring a coherence and an overarching sense of wonder to Our Great National Parks.

While I was right in the middle of scoring this series in summer 2021, my father became very ill (he’d been battling cancer for a while, but suddenly took a turn for the worse), and I spent some time  away from the project to be with him in his final days, and with my mother and sister in the aftermath. It was a very upsetting time and the team on this series were very understanding about it, and that my priority should be with my family. I did break my NDA by telling my dad in his last days that I was working on this series with Barack Obama, and he seemed very happy to hear about that. He always took great interest (and pride) in my work, so I was glad to be able to tell him… Talking to him about the new projects I am working on is just one of many things I’ve missed since he passed away.

I was very happy to be able to record the score with a large orchestra (up to 60 players for many sessions) in Macedonia. I wasn’t able to go to the sessions in person, but directed them over Zoom, which was very successful and was really happy with the results. In addition, many fantastic soloists performed on the soundtrack including Eurielle (vocals), Flora Curzon (violin), Nicholas Holland (cello), Andy Findon (flutes), and Graeme Flowers (trumpet). I also had a lot of help from my assistant on this project, the lovely Dan Baboulene.

Netflix released the soundtrack at the same time as the series went out in April 2022. You can listen to some of the tracks on this page or on Spotify.

UPDATE: Delighted to hear that Barack Obama has won the Emmy for Outstanding Narrator for his work on this series!