Laura Karpman
A Grammy-winning, Emmy-winning, and Academy Award-nominated composer, Laura Karpman's imaginative, wide-ranging scores have navigated jazz, rousing orchestral fare, wistful chamber music, and more. The Los Angeles native got her start in television in the late 1980s, working on well over a dozen projects before landing her first feature film, the romantic comedy Lover's Knot (1995). She won her first Emmy Award in 2003 for her work on the pilot of the science fiction series Odyssey 5 , and her skills remained in demand in the sci-fi and adventure sectors -- she contributed to TV series like Steven Spielberg's Taken (2002), video games such as the EverQuest franchise, and films including the documentary Whiz Kids (2009) and the romance Paris Can Wait (2016). In the meantime, she worked offscreen on compositions including Ask Your Mama, a multimedia opera that had its 2009 premiere at Carnegie Hall with Jessye Norman and the Roots. Karpman made her debut in the Marvel Universe with TV's What If…? (2021) and Ms. Marvel (2022). She won her sixth and seventh Emmys for the latter show's theme and dramatic score, leading to the position of composer on 2023's The Marvels. However, it was her inventive, piano-based, Thelonious Monk-informed score for that year's American Fiction (about a character named Monk) that won Karpman her first Oscar nomination.
Born in Southern California on March 1, 1959, Laura Anne Karpman was raised by an artist who hoped she would become a musician and surrounded her with music -- particularly classical and jazz -- even while she was in utero. Laura grew up singing formally, composed from the age of seven, and went on to study music with William Bolcom and Leslie Bassett at the University of Michigan. While there, she attended a 1979 campus concert by Ella Fitzgerald and was able to meet her idol backstage. After leaving Ann Arbor with a Bachelor of Music in hand, she completed a master's and doctorate in music composition from the Julliard School in Manhattan. During her time there, she studied with Milton Babbitt.
Back in Los Angeles, Karpman worked in theater, including scoring plays and penning musicals. She began racking up television credits in 1989 with the TV movie My Brother's Wife, starring John Ritter. This kicked off a steady stream of work in the medium, including further TV movies and several documentary series (World of Discovery, Nature). She made her feature film debut with the romantic comedy Lover's Knot in 1995. Highlights of her varied work over the next several years and included the TV biopic Dash and Lilly (1999), the romance The Annihilation of Fish (1999), and the Emmy-nominated documentary Egypt Beyond the Pyramids.
Karpman had a breakthrough year of sorts in 2002, which saw the release of a TV remake of Stephen King's Carrie, the Steven Spielberg sci-fi series Taken, and the time-travel series Odyssey 5, all featuring Karpman as sole composer. She won her first Emmy for Odyssey 5 in the category of Outstanding Music Composition for a Series (Dramatic Underscore). This led to more opportunities in the science-fiction realm, including the EverQuest II (2004) video game and multiple sequels. She won her second Emmy for the 2007 anthology series Masters of Science Fiction (Outstanding Music Composition for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special).
Meanwhile, she composed the multimedia opera Ask Your Mama, based on the cycle of poems by Langston Hughes. She collaborated with legendary soprano Jessye Norman and the Roots on their 2009 Carnegie Hall premiere. Back onscreen, her various projects included the 2009 documentary Whiz Kids, the thriller The Tournament from the same year, and the 2011 video game Kung Fu Panda 2. Karpman shared credit with Raphael Saadiq on the music for the 2013 holiday film Black Nativity, and she continued to split her time between music for TV, films, and the classical stages throughout the rest of the decade. Some of her better-known film output during this time was the 2016 romance Paris Can Wait and the 2017 documentary Step. She also wrote the score for the 2019 Discovery series Why We Hate, which not only received a soundtrack release but earned Karpman her third and fourth Emmy Awards (for its theme and dramatic score).
The composer won another Emmy for the next year's Lovecraft Country (Outstanding Music Composition for a Series, with Saadiq), and in 2021, she joined the Marvel Universe via the animated series What If…? This led to her suspenseful, often playful orchestral score work on the 2022 mini-series Ms. Marvel and the related 2023 film The Marvels. The year 2023 also saw the release of the acclaimed film satire American Fiction, whose puckish, piano-centric score was largely inspired by Thelonious Monk. It resulted in Karpman's first Academy Award nomination for Best Score. By then, she was getting ready for the fully staged premiere of Balls, an opera about tennis' 1973 Battle of the Sexes, and had a pandemic-themed opera in the works.
© Marcy Donelson /TiVo
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American Fiction (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Colonne sonore - Pubblicato da Masterworks il 15 dic 2023
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
The Marvels (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Colonne sonore - Pubblicato da Hollywood Records il 20 nov 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Ms. Marvel: Vol. 1 (Episodes 1-3) (Original Soundtrack)
Colonne sonore - Pubblicato da Hollywood Records il 22 giu 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
What If...?: Season 2 (Original Soundtrack)
Laura Karpman, Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum
Colonne sonore - Pubblicato da Hollywood Records il 5 gen 2024
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Ms. Marvel: Vol. 2 (Episodes 4-6) (Original Soundtrack)
Colonne sonore - Pubblicato da Hollywood Records il 13 lug 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
From Scratch (Soundtrack from the Netflix Series)
Colonne sonore - Pubblicato da Netflix Music il 14 ott 2022
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Why We Hate (Music From The Discovery Docuseries)
Colonne sonore - Pubblicato da Decca (UMO) (Classics) il 25 ott 2019
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
What If...T'Challa Became a Star-Lord? (Original Soundtrack)
Colonne sonore - Pubblicato da Hollywood Records il 23 ago 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
EverQuest ® Soundtracks, Vol. 3 (Torment of Velious, The Burning Lands & Ring of Scale)
Colonne sonore - Pubblicato da Daybreak Soundtracks il 15 mar 2024
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
What If... Happy Hogan Saved Christmas? (Season 2/Episode 3) (Original Soundtrack)
Laura Karpman, Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum
Colonne sonore - Pubblicato da Hollywood Records il 15 dic 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Regarding Susan Sontag (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Laura Karpman, Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum
Colonne sonore - Pubblicato da Lakeshore Records il 16 dic 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Ms. Marvel Suite (From "Ms. Marvel")
Colonne sonore - Pubblicato da Hollywood Records il 8 giu 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
ASK YOUR MAMA
Classica - Pubblicato da Avie Records il 10 lug 2015
Grammy Awards16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
What If…Captain Carter Were The First Avenger? (Original Soundtrack)
Colonne sonore - Pubblicato da Hollywood Records il 13 ago 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Everquest II (Original Soundtrack)
Classica - Pubblicato da Daybreak Soundtracks il 9 nov 2004
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
L.A.'s Finest: Season One (Original Score from the Television Series)
Colonne sonore - Pubblicato da Madison Gate Records il 25 set 2020
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Paris Can Wait (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Colonne sonore - Pubblicato da Madison Gate Records il 4 mag 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
What If...? (Episode 6) (Original Soundtrack)
Colonne sonore - Pubblicato da Hollywood Records il 17 set 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
What If...? (Episode 8) (Original Soundtrack)
Colonne sonore - Pubblicato da Hollywood Records il 1 ott 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
What If...? (Episode 4) (Original Soundtrack)
Colonne sonore - Pubblicato da Hollywood Records il 3 set 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Step (The Motion Picture Score)
Colonne sonore - Pubblicato da Hollywood Records il 4 ago 2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo