Laura Karpman (‘Ms. Marvel’ composer) on infusing ‘a superhero theme’ with Kamala Khan’s ‘deep and significant heritage’ [Exclusive Video Interview] - Gold Derby

"I wanted to come up with something that would give Kamala Khan the dignity of the MCU and the dignity of a superhero theme, but also acknowledging her deep and significant heritage and how it how it really related to the story," declares Emmy-winning composer Laura Karpman about composing the ambitious multi-genre score for "Ms. Marvel." For our recent webchat she adds, "I'm not a South Asian artist. But I have good ears and I'm a wonderful collaborator. I love other kinds of music." Watch our exclusive video interview above.

SEE Everything you need to know before watching 'Ms. Marvel'

"Ms. Marvel" was developed for Disney Plus by the show's head writer Bisha K. Ali, adapted from the Marvel comics featuring Kamala Khan, created by Sana Amanat, G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona. The six-episode series stars newcomer Iman Vellani as Kamala, a Pakistani-American teen from Jersey City who lives and breathes everything Avengers. Kamala is an aspiring artist, avid gamer and Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel megafan (Brie Larson) who spends her time in a fantasy world of her own creation. Her life is changed forever after she discovers that she has powers of her own, by gaining the ability to harness cosmic energy and create hard light constructs from a magical bangle. This shocking discovery, of which only her best friend Bruno (Matt Lintz) is aware, thrusts Kamala into a spotlight she's not quite ready for, especially since she's already living under the watchful eye of her overprotective parents (Zenobia Shroff and Mohan Kapur), eventually becoming the MCU's first Muslim superhero. "Ms. Marvel" is the seventh TV series in Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, following the Emmy-nominated "WandaVision," "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier," "Loki," "What If…?" and "Moon Knight" and "Hawkeye."

The score boasts  stirring anthemic action cues infused with Pakistani and North Indian instrumentation, that makes 'Ms. Marvel' a decidedly new and exciting sonic installment in the MCU. Karpman was clear in her vision for the score, punctuating it with younger-skewing synth beats while staying true to her Pakistani heritage. "All of us have different parts to us. I describe myself as a queer Jewish girl, I mean, I grew up here," she explains. "If I were to write myself a superhero theme, it would be different from Kamala's. It would reflect aspects of my culture, or what I listened to growing up. So, you have to create a world in which these characters exist musically, and for her it was more complicated than others because of who she is and where she comes from, and really needing to make that alive in the story and make it alive musically. But she is all those things," she says.

"When you're working in the MCU, there are certain things, in my experience, which at this point is now three projects, there's certain things that you want to hit," Karpman reveals. "You want to have a theme for a superhero that feels mysterious, uplifting, heroic. You have to find something that hits the all the buttons of the paces of what you're going to put that theme through. It's finding that one kernel that will always be recognized and associated with that particular character, and then literally putting it through these different genres of what they may encounter during the course of their heroic lives in the MCU, and making sure that it can work for every single one of those."

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