Bear McCreary

Bear McCreary
Role:	Composer
BSG Universe:	Re-imagined Series and Caprica
Date of Birth:	February 17, 1979
Date of Death:	Missing required parameter 1=month! ,
Age:	46
Nationality:	USA
Official Site
IMDb profile

A classically trained composer and multiple-award recipient, Bear McCreary is the mastermind behind the music of the Re-imagined Series.

McCreary's work is available in the Season 1, Season 2, Season 3 and Season 4 soundtracks to the hit SF series. Having composed music since he was just 6 years old, and being a graduate of the USC Thornton School of Music, McCreary has a knack for creating classical pieces, as well as quirky, off-beat melodies.

McCreary worked on the Miniseries as an additional composer with soundtrack composer Richard Gibbs, and collaborated with Gibbs on the soundtracks for season 1 episodes 2 & 3, "Water" & "Bastille Day," respectively. Gibbs opted not to commit to the regular series production, citing schedule conflicts and his desire to devote more time to scoring theatrical films. As a result, McCreary alone scored "33" (the first episode aired) and stayed on as soundtrack composer from then on.

The piano-playing character Slick in the Season 4 episode "Someone to Watch Over Me" was loosely based on McCreary. He also made an uncredited appearance as a patron of Joe's bar in the episode "Deadlock."

McCreary has also scored SyFy's Eureka and FOX's Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, based on the Terminator movies. In addition, he scored the prequel series Caprica and the following movie Blood and Chrome. When not working on television, McCreary also composes soundtracks for independent movies.

Scoring Blood & Chrome

When McCreary composed the score for Blood and Chrome, he faced a unique creative challenge at the intersection of familiarity and innovation. The film's emphasis on action, adventure, and military themes meant he needed to honor the established musical universe of the Re-imagined Series while finding something new to say.

Electronic Synthesis Innovation

For the first time in the Battlestar Galactica musical universe, McCreary introduced electronic synthesizers alongside the signature organic instrumentation. This represented a deliberate departure from his previous work on the Re-imagined Series and Caprica, where he had intentionally avoided synthetic sounds to maintain the dramatic, grounded tone. Blood & Chrome's more adventurous and fun approach gave him license to experiment with heavy synthesizer bass lines and electronic textures to energize the acoustic foundation.

Key Collaborations

McCreary assembled an expanded team for Blood & Chrome, reuniting his core musicians from previous BSG projects while adding new collaborators:

• Mike Keneally - Legendary guitarist and keyboardist who provided heavy metal guitar work, including drop-tuned distortion down to low C
• Jonathan Snipes - Electronic musician who designed custom synthesizer patches
• Chris Bleth - Returning woodwind specialist who performed on duduk and bansuri
• MB Gordy - Taiko and percussion specialist from the original series
• Paul Cartwright - Electric violin virtuoso
• Steve Bartek - Electric guitar and electric sitar performer
• Brendan McCreary and Raya Yarbrough - Vocalists who contributed to the end credits song

Musical Themes and Innovation

McCreary developed several new leitmotifs specifically for Blood & Chrome:

• Military Theme - Used to represent young Adama's developing relationships with fellow soldiers, particularly his bond with Coker, rather than the familial Adama Family Theme
• Becca Theme - A mysterious melody performed by piano, gamelan, vibraphone and rhodes to create a "shimmering, vibrating quality"
• Coker Theme - A beautiful six-note melody reserved for the character's emotional moments, played by solo bansuri with duduk accompaniment
• Destruction Theme - A mournful synthesizer melody inspired by Vangelis' Blade Runner, doubled with duduk to add human expression to the electronic sounds

Technical Recording Innovations

McCreary employed several unprecedented recording techniques for Blood & Chrome. During the orchestral sessions, he created a five-minute ambient string texture by assigning each orchestral section specific tremolo patterns on open strings (Ds and As) and conducting them in real-time while watching the film, shaping the sound dynamically with hand gestures rather than traditional notation. He also worked closely with mixer Steve Kaplan to blend the duduk performances inside synthesizer leads, creating an "oddly expressive" electronic sound enhanced by the subtle human elements of breath and finger movement.

End Credits Collaboration

The film concludes with "Apocalypse: Blood & Chrome," an adaptation of music McCreary originally wrote for The Plan. This marked the first time in the BSG universe that he used English lyrics, written by Raya Yarbrough and performed by Brendan McCreary, blended with Mike Keneally's distorted guitars and Raya's ethereal vocal layers singing the traditional Gayatri Mantra.

Composing the Series Finale

The nearly 100-minute score for "Daybreak, Part I" and "Daybreak, Part II" represents what McCreary described as potentially "The Battlestar Galactica Symphony." With all thematic material firmly established in previous episodes, McCreary took this opportunity to develop themes further than ever before, combining, fracturing, distorting, elongating, inverting and augmenting them in rewarding ways.

Unique Compositional Process

Unlike his typical approach of scoring the most difficult scenes first, McCreary felt such intense creative pressure for the finale that he knew he had to change his method. He began with the very first cue and proceeded chronologically through the entire episode, completing the monumental task in a "blistering and virtually sleepless sixteen days." The process became so overwhelming that he made himself a checklist of every major theme he wanted to appear in the finale and marked them off as he wrote.

Unprecedented Collaboration

When budget constraints threatened to limit the orchestral scope of the finale, McCreary and the producers took an unprecedented step. In a move that "basically never happens" in television production, they personally pooled their financial resources to fund the full orchestral score. Contributors included Ronald D. Moore, David Eick, Jane Espenson, Michael Taylor, Bradley Thompson, David Weddle, Todd Sharp, Paul M. Leonard, and McCreary himself.

Mathematical Precision in Music

McCreary worked closely with the series' science advisor Kevin Grazier to create a mathematically valid method for deriving stellar navigation coordinates from the Final Four Theme. Using a diatonic scale system where each note corresponds to its scale degree (1 through 7), McCreary developed a system that someone with Kara Thrace's musical background would intuitively understand. The process became so complex that McCreary began to empathize with Kara as she struggled to crack the code in the music.

Editorial Innovation

In another unprecedented move for television scoring, McCreary requested that editors re-cut the coordinate derivation sequence to match his music rather than the other way around. Working directly with editor Andy Seklir and co-producer Paul Leonard, McCreary sat in the editing room and showed them exactly where he envisioned each musical note hitting, resulting in perfect synchronization between the music and Kara Thrace's finger movements on the keypad.

The Only New Theme

According to McCreary, the Final Four Theme (which he initially called the "Flashback Theme" and later re-titled the "Earth Theme") was the only new melodic idea he wrote for "Daybreak." The rest of the massive score was comprised entirely of variations and developments of familiar themes with already established meaning, making it a true culmination of the series' musical journey.

Leitmotifs in the Battlestar Galactica Soundtrack

McCreary makes use of many recurring character or event leitmotifs in the series' soundtrack. See: Music of Battlestar Galactica (RDM)

External Links

• Official Bear McCreary website.