Hi Kara, we’re so glad to be interviewing you for an AWFC Spotlight. I’ll begin with what I always love to know from fellow composers: Where was your start? How did you know that music was the journey you wanted to take? 

Hi Carolyn, thank you so much for having me! It’s an honor to be part of the AWFC Spotlight series alongside so many talented artists. Music was always around me growing up. My dad is a jazz guitarist, and I think his influence shaped my musical language from the very beginning; that’s probably where my love of dissonance comes from! I took piano lessons rather reluctantly. I really disliked the routine and rigidity of traditional lessons, and to this day I’m much happier learning by ear than reading music. What I did love was sitting at the piano making things up and writing little pieces of my own.

For a long time, I never imagined composing could be a career. It was something I drifted in and out of as a hobby. Then, in my late teens, I started paying attention to film scores. I became completely captivated by Thomas Newman’s music, and The Shawshank Redemption was the score that made me realize someone actually got to do this for a living. That’s what inspired me to attend Berklee College of Music and learn the craft of film scoring. Being surrounded by people who loved the same things I did was an incredible experience. I’d never really had that before. It honestly felt a bit like Hogwarts. During my senior year, I was fortunate enough to receive the BMI scholarship award, which, ironically, was presented by Thomas Newman himself that year. That moment gave me the confidence to move to Los Angeles after graduation and genuinely believe I might be able to make a career out of this.

You’ve found an amazing home with the Bleeding Fingers Music group. Could you give us some background on how your journey brought you there?

When I first moved to Los Angeles, I had a few internships lined up, but I also applied for an assistant position at Bleeding Fingers, an opportunity I never expected to land. With 85 other applicants, I was convinced the odds weren’t in my favor, but I figured it was worth taking the chance.

Shockingly, I was offered the job, and then my schedule became pretty intense, balancing internships with the demands of being an assistant. It was a hectic stretch, but exactly the kind of deep end I needed. Like most assistant roles, there were plenty of late nights printing stems, preparing sessions, and doing whatever needed to keep projects moving.

What made Bleeding Fingers special, though, was that I wasn’t learning from just one composer; I was immersed in an entire collective of incredibly talented musicians. Everyone was generous with their time and knowledge, always willing to listen, offer feedback, and genuinely help each other grow. As I began writing more music of my own, I had the chance to receive guidance from composers with years of experience. It felt like going back to school, except every lesson was hands-on and immediately applicable.

Eventually, Russell Emanuel, score producer and boss of all things creative at Bleeding Fingers, began hearing some of my work. Thankfully he liked what he heard and invited me to join the roster as a composer. Eight years later, it’s still surreal to say I’ve gone from assistant to Principal Composer and VP of Creative Development. The mentorship I received here is something I try to pay forward with every apprentice who comes through the doors. Bleeding Fingers has always been about developing talent. The goal isn’t to keep assistants as assistants. It’s to help them become composers.

I was deeply moved and affected by your work on the series Tattooist of Auschwitz. This is a profound story of human resilience. What was the most challenging element about working on this project, and how did this push you further as an artist?

Thank you for the kind words. The Tattooist of Auschwitz will always be one of the most meaningful projects of my career. When I first learned about the series, it happened to coincide with inheriting my late grandmother’s piano. During World War II, my grandmother’s entire family was arrested by the Nazis, but through an extraordinary twist of fate, she wasn’t on the arrest list and was left behind. As her mother was being taken away, she told her to go to her piano teacher’s apartment. Her teacher, Andrée Levallois, was working with the French Resistance. She took my grandmother into her home, raised her as her own, enrolled her in school under a different name, and continued giving her piano lessons throughout the war. My grandmother always said music saved her life. The very same piano she played all those years ago is the one I used to score The Tattooist of Auschwitz. It’s never been restored or even properly tuned, so it carries this beautiful, fragile sonic connection to the past. Having that instrument on the score felt incredibly personal. Especially with the rise in antisemitism today, it’s more important than ever that we continue telling these stories. Before we started writing, Hans said something that stayed with me throughout the process: “If we are sentimental, we will fail.” At first I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant, but as I began composing, it became very clear. If the music became too sweeping or emotionally manipulative, it risked diminishing the lived experience of Holocaust survivors. The score had to be intimate, restrained, and honest. Lale and Gita’s story is ultimately a love story, one of hope and extraordinary human resilience. The challenge was finding a musical language that honored that love, without becoming overly sentimental or romanticizing the unimaginable reality they endured. I hope we found that balance.

You’re known to embrace unique, custom-built instruments in your work. Tell us more about this! 

Yes! We absolutely love that kind of experimentation. Russell and Hans are always encouraging us to think beyond traditional orchestration at the start of every project. One of our first conversations is usually, “What’s the sound of this score? What can we create that nobody else has?” The best way to achieve that is often by inventing your own instruments rather than relying on existing libraries.

Over the years we’ve built quite a collection. We have the Fat Rex, the Triceratone, the Bone Violin: all custom string instruments, utilizing materials that paleontologists use to study dinosaurs today. Our newest addition, and my personal favorite, is the Terror-tone, which we built for the latest season of Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age. We worked with paleontologists Michael Chiappone and Joseph Neidorf, who helped us develop several of the dinosaur-inspired instruments in previous seasons. This time, we wanted to create something inspired by the Terror Bird, or Phorusrhacidae, one of the Ice Age’s most fascinating predators.

What makes the instrument so special is that it wasn’t just inspired by the bird aesthetically. It was actually designed around the fossilized larynx and trachea of Llallawavis scagliai, the only known Terror Bird species with preserved vocal organs. Obviously no one knows exactly what these animals sounded like, but having that fossil gave us this incredible scientific starting point. Working with the amazing craftspeople at Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, we turned that idea into a real instrument that produces these deep, haunting, resonant sounds, unlike anything you’d find in a traditional orchestra. I love that it’s not trying to imitate a prehistoric animal. It’s taking something from nature and translating it into music. You hear it woven throughout the score, and it gives the whole series this otherworldly quality that we couldn’t have achieved any other way.

One of the coolest additions to your filmography is your work on the Simpsons. What was it like for you to enter into such an established, iconic franchise?

Thank you! The Simpsons is genuinely one of my favorite projects I’ve ever worked on. It starts and ends with the people. The writers, producers, and showrunners are simply extraordinary. After nearly forty years, they’ve mastered storytelling and comedy in a way that’s incredibly inspiring, and it’s both humbling and surreal to be part of something so iconic. There are still moments where I have to pinch myself. I work closely with Russell, who serves as score producer on the show, and somehow I’ve now been one of the principal composers for almost eight seasons. What’s so exciting is that every single episode is different. One week we’re parodying a classic film score, the next I’m writing big Broadway numbers, jazz, horror, you name it. It really feels like a masterclass in every musical style imaginable. Honestly, so much of what I know about scoring comes from working on The Simpsons. It constantly challenges you to communicate every possible emotion, and every subtle variation of that emotion, sometimes in just twenty seconds of music. It’s incredibly demanding, but it’s also endlessly fun, and getting to laugh every day while making music is a pretty wonderful way to spend your time.

Mentorship can be so important to emerging composers. Are there mentors that you had in the composing world who really helped you find your own sonic footing?

Absolutely. Back at Berklee, one of my biggest mentors was my best friend, the incredible composer Jina An. She was a few years ahead of me and was endlessly patient and encouraging. At the time, I barely knew how to use my DAW, and she always helped me catch up and wouldn’t let me quit. I looked up to her tremendously then, and I still do.

That mentorship continued when I joined Bleeding Fingers. The culture there is built around supporting one another, and I’ve been incredibly fortunate to learn from Russell Emanuel, Hans Zimmer, and so many of the composers around me. They believed in me before I fully believed in myself, and even now I still receive thoughtful feedback that pushes me to keep growing. That’s one of the greatest gifts a mentor can give you.

It’s been such a pleasure, Kara, and I can’t wait to hear what you do next. If you can tell us, what’s an upcoming project or highlight you’re excited about? 

I’m excited about quite a few things! First, we’re already hard at work on this year’s The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode, which is always one of the highlights of the year. It’s wall-to-wall music across three completely different stories, and every year we get to record a fantastic orchestra on the Newman Scoring Stage.

We’re also working on HBO’s Harry Potter series. I can’t say much just yet, but it’s been an incredible experience collaborating with the talented team behind it. It’s one of those rare projects where you can genuinely feel you’re watching television history being made, and it’s been a privilege to contribute in whatever way we can.

Interview by Carolyn Koch
Edited by Michael van Bodegom-Smith

Check out Kara’s Directory Page here!