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Looking at the current film music landscape in Hollywood, it seems that the heyday of great orchestral scoring is, for the most part, a thing of the past. A series of factors that involve both aesthetic and practical changes have impacted the film scoring industry dramatically in the last two decades and made it more uncommon to hear symphonic/orchestral accompaniment music as the preferred stylistic vehicle for modern film and television scores in Hollywood, with a few notable exceptions. While it’s true that each film has its own personality and needs its own “noise” (and such should not necessarily be always traditional and orchestra-based, of course), there is a common sense that the art of film scoring as perfected by the great composers of Hollywood’s Golden Age and subsequently revived by the following generation (including John Williams) is being lost each day a little. Today’s landscape is certainly eclectic and varied, but it feels a lot emptier than in the past if one craves for the classic storytelling-like, leitmotivic-based, orchestral film scores that accompanied many of the great movies of the past… But it’s not time to lose hope yet, thanks to the talent of a very young composer who is becoming the “talk of the town” among film music aficionados and has put his name on the map as one of the most promising emerging talents in Hollywood: composer Cameron Moody.
Born in 2002 and originally from Atlanta, Georgia, Cameron started showing an innate tendency for music since he was a child. Seeing Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace was the spark that ignited his love for film music and subsequently led him to become a true connoisseur of the work of John Williams. He kept studying the music of the Maestro as a teenager and at the same time he voraciously absorbed everything he could about theory and orchestration (at 14, he read Samuel Adler’s The Principles of Orchestrations). After high school, he underwent serious musical studies at New York University, where he majored in Composition and Screen Scoring. He continued pursuing opportunities in film scoring and started to get noticed in international competitions: In 2019, he was awarded a Marvin Hamlisch International Music Award for Best Composition by an Emerging Composer; in 2021, at age 18, he made history by becoming the youngest winner of ASCAP’s Henry Mancini Music Fellowship Award, while in 2024 he also became the youngest composer to ever be selected as a fellow in the highly coveted NBC/Universal Composers Initiative. Cameron was noticed by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Michael Abels during a film scoring workshop at NYU and was invited to join him in Los Angeles as part of his team. As additional composer, Moody wrote music for such distinguished film and television projects as the Emmy-nominated documentary series Allen v. Farrow (2021), Nightbooks (2021) Jordan Peele’s Nope (2023), Kobi Libii’s The American Society of Magical Negroes (2024) and the Disney/Lucasfilm television series Star Wars: The Acolyte (2024).
The Acolyte offered Cameron the opportunity to compose music in the footsteps of his childhood hero John Williams and gave him the license to showcase his innate talent for symphonic storytelling and ambitious sparkling orchestrations. Moody has never hidden his sincere love for Williams’ music and paid homage to the composer’s vernacular in some of his works written for the concert hall and for specific occasions, such as the “Theme for Better Days” (dedicated to LA session trumpeter Rob Schaer), “Overture for LAFCI” (composed for the Los Angeles Film Conducting Initiative) and the piece “Celebrate the Arts” (composed for the National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica).
Cameron began also to pursue projects as lead composer: He wrote the score to the eight-part documentary series Kennedy, which chronicles the life and legacy of the 35th President John F. Kennedy. In the summer of 2024, he completed Patrick Green’s documentary feature film Sincerely, Los Angeles, a love letter to the late Oscar-winning basketball legend Kobe Bryant (another interesting John Williams connection).
The prime gig for Cameron finally arrived in 2025: the Hulu original limited series Washington Black, for which he composed an ambitious score for full symphony orchestra. The show, which was created by Selwyn Seyfu Hinds, led by showrunner Kimberly Ann Harrison, and stars Ernest Kingsley Jr. and Sterling K. Brown, premiered on Hulu on July 23rd. At 22 years old, he has made history as the youngest person to ever score a 20th Century Television series. The show offered him his biggest canvas yet: the sprawling epic quality of the story allowed for expressive storytelling-like orchestral accompaniment, driven by leitmotifs associated with characters and locales. Moody composed a score that significantly enhances the emotions on screen, contributing mightily to the sense of adventure, excitement and discovery of the main character and also addressing the dramatic elements of the narrative. It’s a refreshingly traditional score that never sounds “old-fashioned,” but quite the opposite shows how much orchestral scoring can still contribute mightily to contemporary dramas.
The project also offered Cameron the opportunity to record the score on the legendary Newman Scoring Stage at 20th Century Fox, conducting an orchestra of some of the finest LA studio musicians, among whom there were regulars of John Williams’ orchestra including oboist Lara Wickes, French horn player Dylan Hart and flutist Geri Rotella, all of whom are often showcased with lovely solo passages. Cameron feels a duty in helping to bring back more scoring work to Los Angeles, which has scaled down dramatically in recent years and impacted on the lives of many musicians and professionals working in the film industry.
In this conversation, Cameron sits down with The Legacy of John Williams to talk about his deep love for the music of the Maestro, reminiscing how crucial it was for his upbringing as a child and how it helped shaping his dreams to become a fully fledged film composer. He also talks about the incredible journey that brought him to Hollywood, the joys and the challenges of writing new Star Wars music and his expansive work for the Hulu limited series Washington Black.
Special thanks to Sarah Roche (Whitebear PR)
Follow Cameron Moody:
- Website: https://www.cameronmoodymusic.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameronmoody_/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cameron.moody.5055/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIWGJ520wBmsp_AWf8elP1g
List of musical excerpts featured in the episode:
. John Williams, “Duel of the Fates” from Star Wars – Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999)
. John Williams, “Ben’s Death and Tie Fighter Attack” from Star Wars: A New Hope (1977)
. Cameron Moody, “Theme for Better Days (for Rob Schaer)” (2021)
. Cameron Moody, “Welcome to Halifax” from Washington Black (2025)
. Michael Abels/Cameron Moody, “Haywood Ranch” from NOPE (2022)
. Cameron Moody, “Battle in Red, Green & Blue” from Star Wars: The Acolyte (2024)
. Cameron Moody, “Forest Trek” from Star Wars: The Acolyte (2024)
. Cameron Moody, “A Tracker” from Star Wars: The Acolyte (2024)
. Cameron Moody, “Classroom on Coruscant” from Star Wars: The Acolyte (2024)
. Cameron Moody, “Dual-wielding Duel” from Star Wars: The Acolyte (2024)
. Cameron Moody, “End Titles” from Star Wars: The Acolyte (2024)
. Cameron Moody, “Wash Flies” from Washington Black (2025)
. Cameron Moody, “Welcome to Halifax” from Washington Black (2025)
. Cameron Moody, “Brand New Adventure” from Washington Black (2025)
. Cameron Moody, “Main Titles” from Washington Black (2025)
. Cameron Moody, “Kit’s Prayer” from Washington Black (2025)
. Cameron Moody, “To Morocco” from Washington Black (2025)
. Cameron Moody, “Leaving Halifax” from Washington Black (2025)
. Cameron Moody, “San Gabriel Valley Overture” (2025)
The Legacy of John Williams 