An American composer crafting pieces for concert orchestra, cinema, stage, and additional formats, Michael Abels has gained broadest recognition through the tense, frequently unsettling horror scores he created for filmmaker Jordan Peele. Classical audiences know him for integrating popular-music influences into orchestral works such as Global Warming (1991) and Delights & Dances (2007); his first feature-film assignment arrived with Peele’s 2017 release Get Out, and their third successful partnership, Nope, reached theaters in 2022.
Born in Phoenix, Arizona, and brought up in rural South Dakota, Abels started piano instruction early. He continued piano studies at the University of Southern California, then enrolled at the California Institute for the Arts in 1985 and 1986 to explore West African music. His initial orchestral composition, Global Warming, commissioned by the Phoenix Youth Symphony, paid tribute to international folk traditions. After its 1991 premiere, ensembles including the Chicago, Baltimore, and Detroit Symphony Orchestras presented the piece. In the wake of President Nelson Mandela’s election, it became one of the earliest works by an African-American composer performed by the National Symphony of South Africa. Additional 1990s scores encompassed American Variations on Swing Low Sweet Chariot, premiered in 1993 by Doc Severinsen and the Phoenix Symphony; Frederick’s Fables, premiered in 1994 with narrators James Earl Jones and Garrison Keillor; and 1998’s Dance for Martin’s Dream, honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. Commissioned by the Los Angeles Opera, Abels’ opera Homies & Popz premiered in 2000 and recounted activist Ted Hayes’s creation of a cricket team for inner-city Los Angeles youth.
Abels marked the September 11 attacks with the chorale Tribute, the first work the National Symphony Orchestra performed after the events. Later-decade pieces included Urban Legends and Aquadia, jointly commissioned by the Chicago Sinfonietta and Shedd Aquarium for an installation.
Abels’ initial film score accompanied the early-2017 release Get Out, Jordan Peele’s directorial debut, with the recording issued by Back Lot Music digitally and Waxwork on vinyl. That year he also supplied additional music for the crime drama Detroit, whose principal composer was James Newton Howard. He returned to Peele for the 2019 horror/thriller Us, whose soundtrack likewise appeared on Back Lot and Waxwork. Scoring opportunities expanded rapidly thereafter, with his music featured in the sci-fi film See You Yesterday (2019), the crime drama Bad Education (2020), and the dark fantasy Nightbooks (2021) before he again collaborated with Peele on the 2022 blockbuster Nope, shot with IMAX cameras. Abels’ score for the low-budget thriller Breaking appeared later the same year.
