Composing the Cosmos: Scoring The Story of Everything

About this episode

Composer Hannah Parrott discusses her process of creating the musical score for the documentary The Story of Everything.

One thing that makes the new documentary film The Story of Everything so stunning is the inspired musical score written for it. On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid welcomes composer, producer, and arranger Hannah Parrott to discuss her experiencing of putting the cosmos to music, from the farthest galaxies to the inner recesses of the cell. The movie, showing in theaters for one week only (April 30 - May 6, 2026) is a cinematic exploration of the cosmos that unpacks three scientific discoveries of the last century that reveal mind and purpose behind the universe. In this conversation, Hannah explains why she loves the medium of film music and gives us a glimpse into her process of creating music for The Story of Everything. She says music can bypass analytical thinking to reach a viewer's emotional core. She also values that the music she writes is able to work together with the visuals to create a lasting impression: "And it's just this overload of experiencing the story on every visceral level you can," Hannah notes. "And I think music is a huge part of that and works in tandem as this choir of voices telling the same story." Source

People in this episode

Host: Andrew McDiarmid

Guest: Hannah Parrott

Topics covered

• film music
• cosmos
• scientific discoveries
• emotional storytelling
• documentary

Keywords

• music
• documentary
• cosmos
• Hannah Parrott
• Andrew McDiarmid
• emotional core
• film score

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: The Story of Everything

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