Vivek Maddala is a two-time Emmy-winning composer who focuses on feature films, theater and dance productions, and television series. As a multi-instrumental performer, Vivek effortlessly moves through diverse musical styles and instruments. He has also served as a guest conductor with renowned orchestras and chamber groups, performing work he has written for ballet and film.

Most recently, Vivek composed the score for the PBS documentary Asian Americans, which explores two centuries of immigration and civil rights experiences by Asian Americans in the United States. (The 5-hour series is now available for streaming on PBS.org and the PBS Video app.)

The soundtrack album for Asian Americans includes 84 minutes of key moments and themes from the sweeping score, taking listeners on a journey that traverses 19th century American textures; European Romantic motifs; 20th century jazz, soul, and rock; and modern-day electronica. Vivek also incorporated splashes of musical color from Japan, Philippines, Korea, China, and India into his score. Taken together, it forms a cohesive musical fabric that transcends temporal and geographic boundaries.

When scoring films, Vivek speaks with his unique musical voice. He actively seeks out projects that lift the human spirit – that challenge power structures and elucidate the human condition. His works, extraordinarily diverse in style, stand out among contemporary compositions for their depth of expression, brilliance of sound, and compassionate nature.

We had the distinct pleasure of sitting down with Vivek Maddala to discuss his unique approach to music, his score for Asian Americans, and the inherent political and cultural nature of music.

Roarbots: Unless the internet is lying to me, you have a degree in electrical engineering? How did you decide to parlay that into a career in music?

Vivek Maddala: I’ve been playing and writing music since I was a small child, but I also had a good background in math and physics… so, in a way, I pursued electrical engineering as a means to utilize my technical aptitude in the service of making music. Being a modern film composer necessarily means you have to wear multiple hats.

To wit, in addition to coming up with melodies, chords, and contrapuntal lines (the usual job of a composer), you have to understand the methods of capturing and processing sound (the usual job of a recording/mix engineer). In essence, modern composers have to function as “music producers,” which is a job description that exists at the intersection of “composer,” “performer,” and “engineer.”

To clarify further, having a background in engineering doesn’t make me a better composer, in the sense that it doesn’t affect how I create musical ideas (vis-à-vis harmony or rhythm); nor does it improve my ability to interpret or affect drama (the core of film scoring); nor how I communicate with film makers. But it does indeed help me realize my musical ideas effectively.

In order to craft sounds, build sonic palettes, and combine aural information evocatively and deftly, it really helps to understand concepts like superposition and phase coherence and to have some facility with Fourier analysis and even electromagnetics. There’s something empowering, and perhaps even liberating, to know that I can find a clear path to achieve pretty much any sound I hear in my head because I have a framework of technical knowledge and analytical training.

But I don’t think having a math or engineering background is useful only to the extent that it can give you skills for a particular task or function. On the contrary, I think it’s important for everyone to develop an analytical mind, which is what happens when you study math – and that’s because analytical thinking is intrinsically valuable. Similarly, I think it’s absolutely essential to develop critical thinking skills, intuitive skills, and a deep empathic sense – if only to try to be a positive force in the world.

Roarbots: Your newest project, Asian Americans, is a 5-hour documentary series. About how much music did you write in all?

Maddala: There are over 4 hours of score music that I wrote for the series. There’s another maybe 1-2 hours of music that I wrote for the show that’s not actually in the show – like musical “suites” I came  up with to workshop and demonstrate thematic ideas for the filmmakers, as well as alternate versions of cues, some of which are radically different than what made it into the show.

Roarbots: Is it overwhelming or freeing to know you have that much space and time (certainly more so than a film) to flesh out musical themes and ideas?

Maddala: It’s not overwhelming. It’s definitely advantageous to have more space in which to launch and develop musical motifs. There are many cases where I established thematic ideas that evolve or mutate, and sometimes collide with other musical ideas, to reflect and affect the story.

All the major historical and narrative information, and the essential concepts that the filmmakers wanted the audience to absorb, have parallel musical themes. When you have such a broad canvas (i.e., 4 or 4.5 hours of space to create), you can really do a lot with musical imagery, and it’s a marvelous gift.

Roarbots: How did you choose which tracks made it on to the soundtrack release, which is only 80 minutes or so?

Maddala: The music on the soundtrack release represents a pretty good cross section of what’s in the series. But playtime limitations of the soundtrack compelled me to excise a lot of music that is important to me and music that’s significant to the series (which was a little painful).

I based my choices on a very simple criterion: “What would make for the best listening experience?” So I consciously divorced the music from its role in the storytelling and made decisions based on the intrinsic musical attributes of each piece and the flow from track to track. Therefore, the sequence of the tracks doesn’t follow the music cue order in the series, but it follows a kind of new musical path.

Track 1 is the main title; track 2 jumps to the middle of Episode 3; track 3 returns us back to the middle of Episode 1; track 4 springs forward to the end of Episode 2; etc. Since people will be listening to the soundtrack independent of watching the show, I figured it would be most effective to take them on a whole new listening journey that obliquely alludes to the story arc of the show but doesn’t follow the same path.

Roarbots: The score for Asian Americans alternates between being lush and orchestral and surprisingly jazzy. Noticeably absent are “traditional” Asian instruments, music, and styles. I imagine this was intentional. Can you talk about the thinking behind that?

Maddala: Yes, this was important. Early in my collaboration with the filmmakers, we discussed the extent to which we want to use geographically and temporally specific musical gestures. We didn’t immediately know the answer, but in my experience, you must be careful about splashing in authentic musical colors from the locations or cultures in a story, lest you come off sounding “touristy” or patronizing.

As I began writing, we came to realize that for the most part, it wasn’t a good idea to make it sound “Chinese” or “Indian” or “Filipino.” There’s a universality to the stories of struggle and achievement in the show, and mostly, we didn’t want the music to step outside the role of speaking about those universal concepts. But there are notable exceptions.

In Episode 1, I used an erhu (a bowed Chinese instrument) when telling the story of a young immigrant from China in the early 20th century who, over time, finds herself identifying more and more as American. To aid in telling this story, the erhu melody eventually morphs into a tune played by a Western fiddle, and the entire thing is undergirded by a decidedly American-sounding steel-string guitar. It’s a restrained but, I think, effective method of conveying the emotional message to the audience.

In another case, I used South Asian instruments (sarangi, ghatam, kanjira, mridangam) overtly to express an exaggerated or distorted “orientalist” mindset (channeling the Edward Said critique). And during a Chinese poetry reading, I used bamboo flutes to transport, subliminally, the audience into the headspace of the scene’s protagonist.

So there are cases where I used Asian musical modes and textures in the show… but you’re correct that we mostly avoided them.

Storefront of Chinatown meat market, San Francisco, 1895 (PBS)

Roarbots: At its core, scoring a film or show is a bit like telling someone else’s story. With Asian Americans, you’re telling the story of a wildly diverse group of people through music, but it’s also done through a specific lens built by the filmmakers. How much of yourself is in this score?

Maddala: I think in order to score a film authentically, you have to live inside the stories and its characters and themes. Indeed, it’s someone else’s story, but I try to make it my own in some way – but trying to empathize with the people and the situations they’re experiencing.

In the case of Asian Americans, it’s such a powerful narrative and I had countless discussions with the filmmakers throughout the process about what we’re trying to say, what we’re not trying to say, and how we want the audience to feel. I think if the storytelling is compelling, you can’t help but be drawn into it.

I believe the score contains a lot of me in it, and I also think that writing the material evolved me as a human. So I suppose you could say that I’m both in the score and the score is in me.

Roarbots: All art is political, but do you feel like your music – or your role as a musician – has taken on new dimensions in our current environment?

Maddala: All art is inescapably political, and that includes both what we say in our art and what kinds of projects we choose to work on. I don’t see our current environment as fundamentally different than previous environments, because the struggles have always been the same. Capitalist exploitation, patriarchy, racism, imperialism – these have been defining characteristics of the status quo for a long time.

But now there is greater urgency to overturn them because the planet is literally melting and we’re closer to the brink of nuclear war than we have been at any time in the past. (If you’re unclear about this, please check out reports by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists – and specifically, the Doomsday Clock.)

The difficulty with working in Hollywood (as an institution) is that there are perverse incentives to not challenge establishment narratives. As an artist, if you choose to color outside the lines in a meaningful way (effectively interrogating assumptions that serve entrenched power), there can be severe personal consequences like loss of income/livelihood or social ostracization. It’s part of an unacknowledged Neo-McCarthyism, and it’s something I think about a lot and struggle with.

For example, I could choose to pursue projects that glorify military violence, as many Hollywood films do. And in mainstream thinking, this choice would be considered “apolitical” – because veneration of war is not only normalized; war is romanticized. And there’s no shortage of resources or funding for war propaganda.

However, if I were to write an opera that challenges the cultural and geopolitical suppositions that underpin Western imperialism, suddenly my art is seen as “political.” In reality, it’s no less political than the aforementioned case, but one position is celebrated inside establishment thinking and is a continuation of business as usual (which Hollywood exists to bolster), whereas the other position opposes it.

Mostly, what I’ve done is work outside the Hollywood system (seeking meaningful projects that feed my soul) while keeping a foot inside the Hollywood system (for career sustenance). It’s been a perpetual struggle for me to balance the two sides.

Roarbots: If you weren’t a musician, what would you be doing?

Maddala: I’ve worked as an electrical engineer and research scientist in the past, and it was something I found fulfilling, and I could still be immersed in that field. But pursuant to your previous question about the intersection of art and politics: what I ought to do is devote considerable energy and creativity to organize within existing (and not-yet-existing) social movements for radical transformation of our society – to create a more just and sustainable world.

Roarbots: Who’s the one composer working today that everyone should listen to?

Maddala: On any given day, I could answer that question in myriad different ways. Today, I’ll say Arvo Pärt, the Estonian composer.  Enjoy!

Asian Americans is currently streaming on PBS.org and the PBS Video app. Vivek Maddala’s score is available here.